


High Flying with Monster Girls

by Anakin99, Rider_Paladin



Category: DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Rosario + Vampire
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 11:24:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18850102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anakin99/pseuds/Anakin99, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rider_Paladin/pseuds/Rider_Paladin
Summary: When a rash of deaths and disappearances start taking place around a stop where young men were supposed to be taken to attend Yokai Academy, Batman sends his first partner to investigate the murders - and into a dangerous, exciting . . . and bouncy new world. Will he survive amorous students and jealous rivals long enough to expose the murderer?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Nightwing belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers and their related subsidiaries. Rosario + Vampire belongs to Akihisa Ikeda, Shonen Jump, Funimation, and VIZ Media. I make no money from using characters and settings related to, associated with, or appearing in either of those series and receive no other material compensation from using those characters and settings. I am simply writing this for personal enjoyment, both my own and hopefully that of my fans and readers.

A sleek black figure on an equally sleek black customized motorcycle rode into the bat cave hidden under Wayne Manor and used as the crime-fighting base for Gotham City's legendary Dark Knight. After securing the motorcycle in its parking space in the cave's vehicle bay, the black-clad figure removed his helmet, revealing the handsome, slightly tanned features of a dark-haired young man at the end of his teens, only slightly concealed by the bird-shaped domino mask over his eyes. He walked to the massive computer console being grimly watched by the imposing dark figure in front of it, said figure nearly completely concealed by a black cape and pointy-eared cowl.

"Dick," the figure greeted in a low rasp of a voice.

"Bruce," the black-clad young man answered.

"These disappearances and deaths in Japan," the pointy-eared figure, none other than the Batman himself, spoke up. "Do you know what they have in common?"

"They all happened around a mysterious bus stop?" Dick Grayson, formerly known as Robin and now called Nightwing, remarked.

"Yes," Batman confirmed. "A bus stop where the young men in question were supposed to wait for a bus to take them to a private boarding school called Yokai Academy."

"Yokai?" Nightwing repeated. "What kind of name for a school is that?"

"That's what you're going to find out," Batman stated. "Foul play is definitely not ruled out here. And according to John Constantine and Zatanna Zatara, neither is foul magic." He turned to look at Nightwing as his protégé walked closer to him and the computer console. Batman passed something small and silvery to Nightwing, who examined it briefly.

"I suppose it'll go well with my graduation ring," Nightwing remarked, his tone sardonic.

"It has warding seals etched into the metal," Batman explained. "To protect you from magic targeted at you with malicious intent. A gift from a friend."

"When you say malicious intent . . ." Nightwing started to say.

"Intent to control, injure, torment, or kill you," Batman clarified. "As long as you're wearing it or otherwise have it on your person, magic of that kind won't be able to affect you. The warding seals on that ring are very powerful."

"Well, then, I suppose I'd better get going," Nightwing said. "What are you going to tell Tim?"

"That he needs to work on his discipline," Batman replied.

"I meant about me leaving," Nightwing clarified.

"You're on a mission," Batman answered.

"Fine, then," Nightwing said, shrugging his shoulders. "It'll just be you and him. Great bonding opportunity."

Batman didn't answer in words, his gaze drifting to a memorial case framing the red-and-dark green Robin uniform worn by Jason Todd, dead as of one year ago at the hands of the Joker. The boy had been too rash and angry for his own good, and it had ultimately been the death of him, much to Batman's and Nightwing's sorrow. Now Tim Drake, the young boy whose genius had enabled him to deduce the identities of both Batman and the original Robin, was acting in his stead, determined to be a balancing force in the elder crime-fighters' lives. Of course, that was assuming he survived the experience, and survive he would, because Batman wasn't going to bury another Robin, and Nightwing wasn't going to bury another brother-in-arms.

A scant few days later, Dick Grayson was dressed in a Yokai Academy boys' uniform, a green blazer over a white dress shirt and khaki pants with red tie, standing at a bus stop in Japan with his luggage in a backpack. He'd donned the ring Batman had given him – "from a friend," he said; which friend would that be? – and so far it was serving him well, though he was still looking out for any possible ambush. His cautious observations were interrupted by the bus coming to his stop.

"Are you here to take me to Yokai Academy?" Dick asked the driver.

"Are you here to attend Yokai Academy?" the driver asked back, his face partly concealed by the shadow emanating from the brim of his hat.

"Yeah," Dick replied.

"Then get on," the driver said, and Dick did exactly that, plopping down on a seat just behind and to the right of the driver, the better to watch him.

"Are we picking up anyone else, or is it just me?" Dick asked.

"No, it's just you," the driver replied. "We're going straight to Yokai Academy."

"You hear anything about all those disappearances?" Dick asked.

"Disappearances?" the driver echoed.

"Yeah, they were also supposed to attend Yokai Academy," Dick explained. "They even waited at this spot, too."

"Inquisitive kid, aren't you?" the driver remarked with a chuckle. "You better be careful how many questions you ask when you get to Yokai Academy. It might get you in trouble."

Dick smirked. "I'm good at getting out of trouble."

"Not this kind of trouble, you aren't," the driver rejoined, still chuckling. "Now hang on . . . it's going to be a wild ride."

Dick was sure he knew what a wild ride was, having been a passenger and later sometimes driver for Batman's sports car/assault tank hybrid that he'd affectionately dubbed the Batmobile. By the time the ride was over, he had to reevaluate what he thought of as a wild ride. Passing through an inter-dimensional tunnel would do that to someone.

"So . . . here you go," the driver said, having reached their stop. "Try not to get yourself killed. Yokai Academy is a very scary place."

"Thanks for the warning," Dick replied as he stepped off the bus, "but I can handle myself." Going up against the Joker and Two-Face tended to give a person a different definition of "very scary" than what most people had. Plus, he had a protective magic ring on his finger, so he wasn't that worried.

Looking around, Dick realized that the driver had left him in a creepy forest, albeit one still lit by daylight. Shrugging his shoulders, he trekked through the forest, heading up to Yokai Academy. As he walked, he heard the ringing of a bicycle bell and the sound of wheels accelerating toward him. It didn't take long for him to realize that someone had lost control of their bike and was about to crash into him. Acting quickly, Dick somersaulted backwards into the air, uncurling just enough to see what looked like a pink-haired girl in the girls' uniform for Yokai Academy. While still in midair, he grabbed her around her waist and pulled her off the bike, a relatively easy thing to do given how unable she was to control the bike. They landed on the ground, Dick making sure she fell on top of him to cushion her as the bike crashed into the farthest tree trunk still within visual range.

"Are you all right?" he asked the girl, who began to stir in his arms.

"I'm sorry . . ." she replied. "It's just . . . I'm anemic and then . . ."

"It's no problem," Dick said, brushing her lustrous pink hair aside so he could get a better look at her. Whoa . . . she's really . . . pretty.

His musings were interrupted by the girl's panicked shout: "You're bleeding!"

Giving himself a brief once-over, Dick realized that he was indeed bleeding. When they'd landed so roughly on the ground, he'd cut his face on one of the sharper pebbles trying to cushion the girl as much as possible. "I've been injured a lot worse than this," he tried to reassure her. "I'll be ok."

The girl pulled out a handkerchief and began to dab at his bleeding cheek. It didn't take long, though, before her dabbing slowed, and she leaned closer to him, her emerald eyes giving him a half-lidded, smoldering gaze of desire. "I'm sorry . . ." she whispered. "It's just that . . . I'm . . ."

And then she bit him. On the neck. Hard enough to pierce through his skin (were those fangs?). Then she started sucking.

A vampire! Dick thought, astonished. His high threshold for pain, trained into him by seven years of fighting crime on the hard and brutal streets of Gotham City, had made the bite, however surprising, hurt far less than it should. Of course, it was hurting less for a much different reason beyond his endurance. A warm sensation was spreading through his body as the girl sucked from the wound she had created, a sensation that was flowing quickly to certain lower extremities. He lifted his arms to grasp her waist, although whether it was to push her off or hold her close, he wasn't all that certain. A throaty rasp of a groan escaped his mouth, and the girl pulled away, her expression one of shock and horror.

"I'm sorry!" she exclaimed. "Did I hurt you? I didn't mean to . . . it's just . . ."

"You're a vampire and you needed blood," Dick replied, stating the perfectly obvious at this point. "You might want to ask permission next time, though."

"You mean you'll . . ." the girl uttered, stunned by what she'd just heard him say.

"You don't seem like a bad person," Dick commented. "It's no problem by me if you need blood to live, so long as you don't take it against someone's will." He smiled. "By the way, if we're going to be on that level so quickly, the least we could do is learn each other's names. I'll start. Dick Grayson." He put his hand out for her to shake, and she took it, helping him off the ground with surprising strength for one as delicate as she looked.

"Moka Akashiya," the girl introduced herself. "You look like you're a student at Yokai Academy."

"You look like one, too," Dick replied. "Are you?"

"Yeah," Moka admitted, blushing. "I'm sorry, it's just . . . your blood . . . it tastes so good, the texture, the flavor – it's like nothing I've ever had before."

"Thanks," Dick answered, smiling at her. "I work out, eat right . . . does great things for the blood."

Moka giggled, not because she thought he was funny, but because it was such a joy to meet someone so at ease with her despite her being a vampire.  
"We'd better hurry if we don't want to miss orientation," she said.

"Sure, but . . . what are we going to do about your bike?" Dick wondered.

"We'll worry about it later," Moka replied.

Orientation was nothing Dick hadn't seen or experienced before, save for the curious and intrigued stares he was getting from a lot of the girls around him. Now, Dick was aware he was an attractive young man, too many girls and women had shown him that already, but the stares he was getting verged a bit too much on the predatory for his comfort. He did notice, though, that Moka wasn't the only one with a unique hair color; there was one petite but very busty girl with blue hair tied back in a ponytail and accented with a frilly purple hairband with a yellow star as decoration. Another had long and rather messy lavender hair, a third had long and wavy aquamarine hair, and those were just the ones he spotted off the bat.

After orientation was over with, he went to the classroom where he'd meet his homeroom teacher, one Shizuka Nekonome. She was a cheery, youthful woman with her eyes squinting even through her glasses and had strawberry blonde hair with two tufts sticking up like cat ears. It gave Dick flashbacks to a certain thief who had long since made off with his mentor's heart in addition to all the gems and jewels she'd stolen in her career. He was doing his best to pay attention, knowing from all the time Bruce had trained him that almost anything could lead to a valuable clue or piece of evidence, but he was still floored when Nekonome declared that, "This school is for monsters!"

Monsters? Dick thought, shocked and puzzled. Is that why Bruce gave me this ring? Did he know what he was sending me into?

Nekonome went on to explain the purpose of Yokai Academy, which was to help young monsters (called "yokai" in Japanese language) to successfully integrate into human society while concealing their true identities. It was a necessary skill to learn, given that humans dominated the world and were aided in doing so by powerful superhuman champions that were often called "superheroes." Given that some of those superheroes were powerful enough to lay waste to entire armies and many possessed abilities that would make them a match for even most yokai, integration and concealment was the best strategy for long-term survival.

"Screw that," a thuggish young man with long, shaggy brown hair and a fair amount of facial piercings scoffed. "I'm not afraid of those 'superheroes.' I'd wipe the floor with them, and then I'd do what I want with the hot ones before moving on to the rest of the stupid humans."

Another student scoffed at him. "That'd be a long list for you to go through. I doubt there are any ugly female superheroes."

Dick bit back a growl at their exchange, but his fists clenched so tightly the knuckles had gone white with his growing rage. If this was the caliber of yokai that this school was trying to "civilize," then he'd have his work cut out for him in making sure scum like that couldn't touch innocent people.

"You ever been on the receiving end of heat vision? Or a ring with the power to create any kind of construct or effect the wearer can will into existence? Or a lasso that forces you to tell the whole truth and nothing but? Or punches thrown faster than the speed of sound?" Dick asked his thuggish classmate, who just glared back at him. "Oh, no? Nothing to say to that? Good. Shut up about thinking you're so bad you can walk all over the Justice League. They'd chew up and spit out a pathetic pile of garbage like you."

The thuggish classmate rose up as though ready to attack, and Dick's body coiled like a spring, ready to dodge or counterattack as well. "Enough!" came Nekonome's shockingly forceful voice. "We are not here to fight! We are here to learn how to live in peaceful coexistence because that is the only way we're going to survive! Saizo Komiya, sit down now! You, too, Richard John Grayson!"

Both the now-identified Saizo and Dick retreated into their seats, Saizo still glaring at Dick and Dick glaring right back. Before any further hostilities could ensue, a certain pink-haired vampire walked into the classroom. "Sorry I'm late! I got a little lost!"

"No problem, Moka Akashiya," Nekonome replied. "Feel free to take a seat!"

The male students were babbling semi-coherently about Moka, stunned by her incredible beauty. "Holy crap, look at her!"

"Yeah, she's so hot . . ."

"Such lustrous hair . . ."

"Such creamy skin . . ."

"Look at those legs . . ."

"Legs? What about those –!"

"That can't be a disguise! She's just too . . ."

"BEAUTIFUL!" the male students chorused, with the exceptions of Dick and Saizo.

"Settle down!" Nekonome shouted at them. "This is a place of learning!" She smiled sweetly at Moka. "Don't mind them, Miss Akashiya, just sit wherever you like."

"Ok," Moka assented, and started walking to the desk aisles when her eyes landed on Dick Grayson. "Oh, Dick! It's you! I'm so happy to see you!" She immediately leaped on him for a passionate hug, clutching him tightly to her not-inconsiderable bosom. This triggered another uproar from their male classmates, who were grumbling and cursing about Dick being so "lucky" as to have the hottest girl in Yokai Academy all over him, accompanied by death threats.

"I said, 'settle down!'" Nekonome shouted again at her grumbling and cursing male students. "How many times do I have to tell you?"

The male students quieted down quickly enough, and Moka sheepishly let go of Dick and moved into the desk and chair next to his. "Now, if we can all start learning already . . ." Nekonome remarked in a calmer, though annoyed voice.

After home period and morning classes were finished, it was time for lunch. Many students had their lunch in the cafeteria, while others had their lunch outside. Dick and Moka were among those having their lunch outside, with Moka keeping her arm interlinked with Dick's to hold him close while walking together. This definitely did not escape the notice of their fellow students, though there were plenty of jealous comments from the female students as well as the male students.

Outside, they'd gone to the vending machine to pick up drinks. For Moka, Dick was getting a can of tomato juice, which she'd explained to him as being a substitute for blood that she drank back in the human world. Just as the vending machine had spat out the can of tomato juice in exchange for one 100-yen note, he heard Saizo accosting Moka.

"Come on, I bet you'd rather be with me than that wimpy punk over there," Saizo sneered.

"No, I'd rather be with Dick," Moka replied firmly.

"Can't take a hint, can you?" Dick remarked icily, having made it to Moka's side with her can of tomato juice. "She said no. You don't know what that means?"

Saizo grabbed Dick by the collar of his shirt and lifted him in the air. "You're not going to mock me twice. Stay out of my way if you know what's good for you."

"How about . . . no?" Dick replied, before thrusting his fingers toward Saizo's eyes. Instinctively flinching back, Saizo's grip loosened enough for Dick to slip free, revealing that his thrust had been a feint, and kick Saizo's legs out from under him, knocking him to the ground.

"How did you . . . ?" Saizo snarled.

"It's called knowing how to fight," Dick answered. He tossed Moka the can of tomato juice. "Come on, let's get out of here."

As Moka and Dick walked away, Saizo let out a furious growl at their backs. "You smug little punk . . . you think you can do that to me? You'll see. She'll be mine . . . and you'll be dead!"

Having gone up to the rooftop of the Academy to have their lunch, Moka was staring at Dick with awe in her eyes. "That was pretty impressive, what you did back there," she said.

"I got a lot of fight training before I came here," Dick replied. "But I'd rather hear about you. What's your story? I mean, you're really nice for a vampire."

"Oh, there isn't much to tell . . ." Moka responded shyly. "But I guess I can show you . . ." She undid the first few buttons of her uniform shirt and then spread it further open to reveal a silver cross with a red gem in the center dangling from a chain connected to a black choker around her neck. "This is to keep my real power sealed. If it's removed, I turn into a scary vampire, not so nice at all."

"Have you ever removed it?" Dick wondered.

"No," Moka admitted. "I've never been able to take it off."

"Well, vampire or not, I'd still like to be your friend," Dick said.

"You're the first person that's ever said that to me," Moka confessed with a blush on her face. "And that makes you really special . . . even besides your blood. You're my first."

First what? Dick wondered. First friend? First person she's drank blood from?

"My first time drinking someone's blood straight from the source," Moka clarified. "I usually have to make do with preserved blood packs or tomato juice. You're my first person I've drank from, the flavor, the texture . . . it all combines into such an exquisite taste . . . I could fall in love with you, Dick Grayson."

Dick blushed. "Pretty unique way to fall in love."

"So what about you?" Moka asked. "What got you into fight training?"

"My parents died in an act of sabotage," Dick admitted. "Someone took me in and taught me how to fight, not to avenge my parents but to protect myself and others from the cruelty and injustice of the world around us. I owe my life and a lot more to that man. I don't know where I'd be if he hadn't done what he did for me."

"That sounds great," Moka replied absently, as though deep in thought.

"What's wrong?" Dick wondered.

"Cruelty and injustice . . . I know quite a bit about that," Moka confessed. "In school, nobody believed me when I said I was a vampire. They just thought I was trying to get attention and made fun of me all the time. I never had a single friend in that place. It's why . . . I hate humans."

Those last three words hit Dick like a bullet from one of Two-Face's guns. He had to admit, he'd noticed a lot of casual contempt for humans flung about by his classmates and fellow students, saying things that basically amounted to finding humans good for nothing except being killed and eaten, or raped and then killed and eaten in the case of the females. A lot of it stemmed from what sounded like thuggish arrogance, the belief that being a more powerful being entitled them to do what they wished with those they deemed weaker or inferior. Some of it stemmed from an oft-expressed viewpoint that humans would gladly do the same things to yokai if they learned yokai existed, so for them it was a matter of "do unto others before they do unto you." Sadly, given the corruption and depravity and injustice Dick had seen in his time as Robin and now Nightwing, he couldn't entirely fault his fellow students for thinking that way . . . even if he could still blame them for actually acting on it. Lashing out at the world just because it caused them pain didn't exactly confer moral superiority to those doing the lashing out, especially given the innocents that got caught in the crossfire of their vengeful rampages.

"I can't say I blame you," Dick admitted. "Humans can be a cruel bunch. Then again, it's not like monsters can claim much of a moral high ground, either. You weren't there for this, but Saizo Komiya, that guy that was harassing you before, he said he'd gladly rape any human girl he found attractive enough, and after getting a look in his student profile, it sounds like he really would – and did. There's plenty of misery to go around, whether caused by humans or by monsters . . . but there's just as much kindness and goodness you can find among them, too. I see that in you, just as I saw it in the man who took me in after my parents died."

"You mean, the man who took you in was a human?" Moka deduced in an astonished tone.

"Yeah," Dick confessed. "He was the one responsible for my training and who taught me to use what I could do to protect other people from going through what I did. He's been to a lot of places, seen a lot of things beyond the experience of most humans, and it's given him a kind of enlightenment about how the world works and what can be done to change it. I won't deny that humans have done plenty of evil, but I'm not going to deny that they've done plenty of good, either."

"That man . . . sounds very kind, better than most humans I've met," Moka whispered, still astonished.

"You wouldn't know it from the way he usually acts, but he really is," Dick remarked with an admiring smile.

"Wait . . ." Moka said. "You said you looked in Saizo's student profile. How did you do that? I thought those weren't accessible to students."

"They're not," Dick replied. "I'm just good at getting into things. I used my free period to look around and check things out for myself. Another skill he taught me. Always be mindful of your surroundings, because you never know when you're walking into trouble or not."

"Who did he train you to fight?" Moka wondered.

"Monsters that prey on the innocent," Dick answered. "It doesn't matter if they're human or yokai."

Lunch ended soon enough, and classes resumed, finishing at mid-afternoon. Moka Akashiya had had a lot to think about since then, thanks to her new friend Dick Grayson. He said he'd been trained to fight monsters, and then said it didn't matter if they were human or yokai; a monster was anyone that preyed on the innocent from his definition. He also said he'd been raised by a human after his own parents were killed, and that humans had taught him how to fight to protect those that would be preyed upon by "monsters." It was a very beautiful-sounding ideal, but Moka didn't know if she had it in her to protect humans after being abused by them for so long.

As she went to the forest next to Yokai Academy to ponder this, she was being followed by Saizo Komiya, who had one thing on his mind. "Hey, Moka . . . what's a fine girl like you doing out here by yourself?" he sneered. "Very bad things can happen to pretty girls like you when you go by yourselves, so I should do my duty as a man and watch over you, especially since that wimp you were with won't."

"I don't need you to watch over me!" Moka retorted. "I'm just here to think!"

"Think about what?" Saizo sneered. "About how you'd rather trade up?"

"Get away from me!" Moka snapped.

"Aw, don't be like that . . ." Saizo teased, still leering at her. "I'm just trying to be friendly. We are classmates, after all . . . and I really get nervous around pretty girls like you."

"I know what you do around pretty girls," Moka countered defiantly. "Dick told me all about you."

"Really?" Saizo mocked. "And what does that wimpy pretty boy know about me?" He laughed. "No, I think I better show you that he doesn't know the half of what he's talking about!" As he said that, his muscles started expanding and even bulging, causing his school uniform to strain against them before ripping apart. An exoskeleton-like pattern of spikes began to develop around his exposed upper body, particularly on his shoulders and back.

Moka couldn't help herself. She screamed.

Meanwhile, Dick had indeed resumed his exploration of Yokai Academy and its grounds. This time, he'd changed out of his school uniform and into his Nightwing costume, a sleek black fireproof, bulletproof, and kinetic impact-dampening body armor. The otherwise pitch-black suit was accented by a blue V-stripe spread over his chest like the outstretched wings of a bird and extending down his shoulders and arms to stop at his middle fingertips. His face was concealed by a domino mask shaped like a bird, his eyes covered by opaque lenses with the latest in optical enhancement technology, up to and including a special tracking mode he'd nicknamed "Detective Vision."

Jarring him from his investigation into the murders of young men that were supposed to attend Yokai Academy was the sound of a girl's scream ringing through the air. He began to hurry, sprinting toward the forest from which he heard the scream emanating and darting around and between the trees with their eerily outstretched branches, like gnarled fingers in the darkening sky. With his speed and agility and the visual augmentations in his mask, it didn't take Nightwing too long before he homed in on the source of the scream – Moka, trapped in Saizo's long tongue as he'd transformed into an even uglier form than he'd reckoned. In Yokai Academy, students and faculty were to stay in human shape at all times to help them acclimate better to living in the human world, but it seemed that Saizo had no regard for that rule. Nightwing snarled as he accelerated, drawing his escrima sticks from behind his back in preparation to strike.

Saizo had thrown Moka into a tree after getting his lecherous tongue all over her. "Come on, baby, show me what you really look like!" he challenged her, as she tried to squirm away from him.

"Back off!" Nightwing shouted, dropping down from the tree on Saizo with both escrima sticks lit up by electrical sparks at their business ends, ends he jammed into Saizo's back, eliciting a scream of pain from him. As Saizo's body went into spasms, Nightwing flipped over his head and sprang over to Moka's side. "Come on, let's get out of here." He gently picked her up, putting her arm around his shoulder, and began to run with her.

"You . . . you helped me . . ." Moka uttered, astonished.

"Of course I helped you," Nightwing replied. "It's what I do. Help people."

"How . . . ?" Moka wondered.

"A little bit of agility, a little bit of ambush, a little bit of a shock," Nightwing answered in a whimsical tone that belied his terror for what Saizo could have done to Moka if he'd gotten there a few seconds later.

"Why?" Moka asked. "You're a human! I'm a monster! We don't go together! We'll never go together!"

"Because I've fought beside and befriended people who weren't human," Nightwing replied, putting aside his concern for how Moka had figured him out. "And trust me, they're some of the kindest, noblest, most goodhearted people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing and calling friends. It's why I believe there's still a chance for humans and yokai to come together, if we're willing to try."

Moka looked at Nightwing in wonderment, her heart touched by his words. Could she really bring herself to hope that he was right? That he was telling her the truth? Her pondering was disturbed when she turned to look behind them and saw Saizo charging at them like an enraged bull.

"You little bastard!" Saizo roared, his voice distorted by his transformation. "You think you can take her away from me? She's mine!"

Nightwing turned, slipping an explosive Birdarang out of one of his wrist cuffs and priming it before he threw it at Saizo. To his shock, the Birdarang barely pricked Saizo's armored flesh before falling off, but the detonation a second later was enough to throw Saizo off his feet. However, it was big enough and Nightwing and Moka were close enough that it knocked them off their feet a fair bit, too, and since they were overlooking a cliff . . .

. . . Nightwing had turned them so that he was taking the brunt of the slide down the cliff face, his suit giving him better protection than Moka's school uniform and exposed skin would. "Did you really mean what you said to me before?" she asked.

"Every word," Nightwing replied firmly. As they'd reached the bottom of the cliff, Saizo had recovered and was making his way toward them surprisingly fast for his size. Then again, having dealt with the Venom-powered criminal mastermind Bane before, Nightwing was no stranger to great size belying great speed and agility. He whirled to face Saizo, standing protectively before Moka, his electrified escrima sticks in hand . . . and something else, much to both his and Moka's shock.

The silver cross no longer dangling from her neck. "The seal . . . you broke it . . ." Moka uttered in astonishment.

"I'm sorry . . ." Nightwing barely had time to say before being nearly blown off his feet by the powerful energies expanding from Moka's body now that he'd removed her cross.

"What the hell is this?!" Saizo exclaimed, too stunned by Moka's expanding aura to press the attack he was about to make on Nightwing. Then the aura contracted and dispersed inside Moka, who had very drastically transformed from the delicate pink-haired girl they'd first known her as. This Moka had silvery white hair, narrowed red eyes with slit pupils like a cat's or a lizard's, paler skin, and a more imposing demeanor. However, Nightwing's trained eye for detail made it clear to him that her womanly attributes had expanded along with her power, more evident by the way she yawned and stretched her body. When she was finished doing that, she looked up at Nightwing and Saizo with a deadly smile.

"Is this what I was woken up for?" she asked, her voice much deeper and throatier than before.

"Even in your true form, you're sexy!" Saizo shouted, his lust overcoming his sense of fear and self-preservation from her terrifying aura. "So come here and be mine!"

The transformed Moka chuckled mockingly. "No, why don't you come here? You wanted to take me, right? So do it, then. Come and take me!"

The challenge to his pride did away with the last of Saizo's self-restraint, and he lunged for Moka, who just watched him with a contemptuous stare. "Scum like you would never be worthy of me in a million years," she snarled, raising one long leg for a swift, powerful kick that threw Saizo an ungodly distance back. "Know your place!"

Saizo was too stunned to do anything but mutter, "Yes, ma'am . . ." before passing out. That was when the new Moka turned her attention to Nightwing.

"You're the one who broke my seal," she said as she strode toward him, her hips swaying with her graceful movements in his direction. "And you're not dropping from sheer terror or sheer lust for me. That's very impressive, for a human. You really aren't like the others."

"I like to think I'm one of a kind," Nightwing remarked sardonically.

"And you have a way with words," the new Moka commented with a smirk, just as she'd reached him. "You fascinate me." She took the cross from him, although he didn't have such a firm grip on it due to still being astonished at Moka's transformation. "I'm not the same Moka you befriended. You'd better take care of her, for your sake." She snapped the cross back onto the chain, and her aura began to recede and retract, as her hair darkened from white to its "usual" shade of bubblegum pink and her skin took on more color again. With the sudden contraction of her power, Moka fell into Nightwing's waiting arms.

"This is going to be a wild ride," Nightwing muttered to himself, as Moka had already passed out. "Start of a brand new adventure. What else will this crazy school throw at me?"

Endnotes: There you have it, the end of the first chapter of my new Rosario + Vampire crossover story. For those of you who are fans of my Kamen Rider Dragon Knight/Rosario + Vampire crossover Onyx and Vampire, I haven't given up on that story yet, and I've got a lot already planned out for it. It's just that for right now, I have to go where inspiration leads me, and inspiration has led me here.

For those wondering about the continuity of the DC side of this story, Dick Grayson has become Nightwing and is presently 19 years old; he just looks young enough to pass for someone still in high school. Tim Drake is Robin at this stage, and six years younger than Dick, while Jason at the time of his death was three years younger than Dick. Bane and Batman have fought before, but not to the extremes of Knightfall or even The Dark Knight Rises.

As for my plans for this story, it's not just going to be a retread of the manga and anime; Nightwing is a very well-connected hero in the DCU, the heart of the DCU's hero community, in fact, and you will see heroes and villains alike make their appearances in this story. One of those villains, you might even see in my adaptation of the Witch's Knoll arc, as she happens to have similar goals to the villain there. As for heroes . . . well, I still have to reveal where and how Bruce got the warded ring to give to Dick for his protection, and who exactly is behind the murders of young men accepted to Yokai Academy. Until next time, hold tight and get set, because there is definitely more where this came from.


	2. Chapter 2: "Under a Succubus's Wings"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Nightwing and related characters and properties belong to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Rosario + Vampire belongs to Akihisa Ikeda, Shonen Jump, VIZ Media, and FUNimation. I make no money whatsoever from this story, nor do I receive any other form of material compensation for writing it. This is purely for the entertainment of myself and my readers.

The alarm rang on Dick Grayson's nightstand, blaring the sounds of a familiar melodic rock tune: "All I think about, all I dream about, all I want is you –!" He cut it off with a slam of his hand, and climbed out of his bed, only to drop on the ground and begin doing pushups, stopping only once he'd reached one hundred. Next, he practiced his flips, handstands, cartwheels, tumbles, and somersaults. Following that, he practiced the katas of the fighting styles he'd learned in his years of tutelage under Bruce Wayne. After that was over with, he went to take his shower, slightly nonplussed by the monstrous shapes and forms also heading for the bathroom but concealing it well. It came to mind that pretty much all of his fellow students were some kind of monster or other and inexperienced in maintaining their human forms as per the rules of Yokai Academy.

To think, I'm going through all this just to investigate some murders, Dick remarked to himself, as he heard mutters from his fellow students on "how good" he was at maintaining his human form.

After brushing his teeth, showering, and dressing in his uniform, Dick went ahead for another day of school. Along the way, he ran into Moka Akashiya, back to her sweet pink-haired self, who looped her arm in his and smiled brightly at him. "It's a wonderful morning, don't you think?" she asked.

"Yeah," Dick agreed, smiling back at her.

"But you know what would make it really wonderful?" she prompted.

Dick's smile turned into a small smirk, but he decided to play dumb, just to see where it led. "No, what?"

Moka leaned closer to him, her lips parting as she exhaled. "Your blood . . ." That was when she bit him, her fangs sinking into his neck with a pinching sensation as she began to drink. The feeling of his blood being sucked into her mouth caused Dick to feel a certain kind of lightheaded as the blood that wasn't being sucked by her was flowing to certain lower parts of his anatomy.

Great, I'm getting turned on by her drinking my blood, he groused to himself. Not the worst fetish I could develop while I'm here.

Before he knew it, she'd pulled back, having gotten her fill as she licked his neck to clean the bite marks she'd made and licked her lips to wipe them clean. "Thank you so much! You're really a special guy!" she squealed out giddily. "The texture and flavor of your blood, the rich composition . . . I could just fall in love with you!"

Girls have fallen in love with me for less, Dick mused quietly. Gonna take some real getting used to. Outwardly, he just smiled. "Anytime, Moka." He briefly checked his watch. "We'd better get in before we're late."

As Dick and Moka walked to class arm in arm, someone had been watching them. This someone was a petite blue-haired girl with violet eyes and a frilly purple headband in her hair. She wore a yellow sweater vest over a white dress shirt, both of which were absolutely straining to contain her more-than-sizable bust, and the Academy uniform girls' skirt, which was almost sinfully short around her curvy hips. The girl, beautiful as she was, had a dark look on her face.

"Just you wait, Richard Grayson . . . you'll be all mine."

The school day went on as Dick had come to expect, but he couldn't help the feeling that somebody was watching him. No, on second thought, it felt like he was being watched by eyes that were simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. Observant as he was, he noticed that a lot of the guys he was in class with were even duller-eyed than normal. Obviously, disliking school and lessons was a universal fact of sapient life, but the zoned-out looks he was seeing troubled him because of how little blinking was actually occurring. Did monsters need to blink, by the way?

It didn't help that a lot of those zoned-out looks were coming his way, and when they did, they were intensely focused, as if they were trying to discern something about him that wasn't apparent at first glance. They never stared for too long, but they did stare long enough to make it clear that he was a focus of interest for them. Further confusing things was that their zoned-out stares would trail off into what he could just swear were lovesick expressions, and he had no idea who or what exactly was causing them to look like that.

Then the lunch break came around, and Dick was on his way to see Moka, being eyed curiously by many of his fellow students, many of them being the same ones he'd seen with zoned-out expressions in class. Gets creepier by the minute, he thought to himself.

"Why hello, there, Richard Grayson," a feminine voice greeted seductively from above him. He looked up, and saw a blue-haired girl sitting on the ledge of the balcony staircase leading to the second floor of the Academy building. He noticed that she was sitting in a way that allowed her legs to dangle from the balcony ledge for the appraisal of all the lovesick guys looking at her from below.

"These lovesick idiots," Dick remarked. "Your doing?"

The girl chortled at him and let herself fall off the ledge, landing gracefully on the ground as her short skirt flipped up, allowing those behind her to get a good look at her frilly white panties, which the guys in position to do so were eyeing lustfully. She rose up to her feet, and he noticed that she was pretty tiny in comparison to him, but she had very, very sizable breasts. He'd bet on her being roughly as large as his Teen Titans teammate, the flame-haired alien powerhouse known as Starfire, in the bust department, though she had an extra foot of height on this girl.

"You, Richard Grayson, are the final piece of my plan!" the blue-haired girl boldly declared.

"What plan is this?" Dick asked.

"My plan to turn this entire school into my devoted harem of boy toys!" the girl replied. "All will bow to the beauty that is Kurumu Kurono!"

"At least I know your name now," Dick remarked. "Nice villainous monologue, though."

Kurumu scoffed. "Such a mouth on you . . ." She strode closer to him, her curvy hips swaying seductively as she approached him. "I'm gonna enjoy putting it to better use."

Dick's body coiled like a spring, ready to move in an instant should Kurumu attack him. She did, but not in the way he'd expected. She'd lunged into his arms, wrapping hers around the back of his neck, squishing her very large breasts against the hard planes of his chest, and looked him in the eyes, her violet meeting his blue. She smirked in triumph and gazed hard at him. "Mine now."

"Not quite," Dick replied, smirking back. The anti-magic wards on that ring really do work. Thanks, Bruce. Thanks, mysterious friend you got it off.

"What's going on?" Kurumu asked, bewildered. "Why isn't my charm working on you?"

"I like to think it's my strength of character," Dick replied, his smirk slightly bigger. "Or maybe it's that it takes a lot more to draw me in than pretty eyes and a pretty face . . . to say nothing of what you've got going on below the face."

Kurumu growled in aggravation. "I'll just have to try harder, then!" That was when she grabbed him by the face – and she was quite shockingly strong for her small size – and kissed him hard on the lips, tongue and everything. Also, that was when Moka showed up, having been drawn by all the commotion surrounding Kurumu, just in time to see her forcibly kissing Dick and Dick grappling to force her off him.

Moka! Dick spotted her out of the corner of his eye. This . . . could be really bad.

"What are you doing to him?!" Moka shouted furiously. "Let go of him right now!"

"What does it look like I'm doing to him, you little bitch?!" Kurumu screamed back, having pulled off Dick's mouth when it seemed like he was about to pass out. "He's going to be mine! The final piece that will complete my Yokai Academy Harem Transformation Plan! All I have to do now is get you out of the way!"

"What are you talking about?!" Moka yelled.

"Yeah, what are you talking about?" Dick repeated with sarcastic aplomb.

"I see you all over him, marking him with your kisses, sucking his blood, trying to tell the other girls here to stay away from a prime cut like him," Kurumu answered. "You have any idea how much work it was to get those bozos to think of something other than you!? Toppling you from your little throne as Yokai Academy's Most Desired Girl is going to be such a pleasure, and I'll complete your downfall by taking Richard Grayson for my own!"

"Not gonna happen!" Moka shouted, and lunged at Kurumu, who was quite simply unprepared for Moka's sudden ferocity. She retaliated by slashing at Moka with her fingernails, which had extended into very long and very sharp claws, the strike causing Moka to fall back in fright as her uniform jacket and dress shirt had been slashed open. There were lurid red scratches on the milky flesh revealed by Kurumu's slash, but they were quickly fading away.

"Oh, really?" Kurumu taunted. "Sorry, princess, but I'm not gonna be stopped by the likes of you! I have a duty to my people to find a mate! I went after all the guys here, because out of them all, one of them has to be enough of a monster to be worth it!"

As she stalked toward the prone Moka, ready to finish her off, Dick lunged in front of her with his escrima sticks slipped out from inside his jacket sleeves. "I don't think so."

"You're going to beat me with a pair of sticks?" Kurumu mocked.

"So what if I am?" Dick retorted.

"Cute, but not a lot of brains, are there?" Kurumu teased, before lunging at him. To her surprise, Dick rolled out of the way of her attack and sprung up behind her, driving the end of one of his sticks into her stomach as he flicked on the taser, sending a surge of electricity running through her. Kurumu cried out in pain from the electric shock, but grabbed Dick's arm and twisted hard enough to break it, causing him to lose his grip on the escrima stick. Then she battered his other arm hard enough to knock the other escrima stick out of that hand. "What are you going to do now?"

"What I usually do when a girl breaks my arm," Dick answered, smirking in spite of his pain.

"And what would that be?" Kurumu taunted, lunging for him again, as Dick back-flipped into a stand on his good hand and twisted into a kick to his foe's midsection. The kick staggered her for a moment, but didn't do much else except give Dick the few moments he needed to sprint over to Moka and help her up.

"We gotta get out of here," he said. "It won't be long before Kurumu decides to sic her lovesick dogs on us."

Indeed, it wasn't. Seeing Kurumu wounded had driven her brainwashed love slaves into a frenzy of bloodlust aimed at Dick and Moka, and they went on the attack. Being outnumbered and outgunned, the best Dick could do was reach into his jacket with his good hand and throw the explosive Birdarangs at them. Multiple explosions had created a smokescreen through which Dick navigated with Moka to evade Kurumu's horde of love slaves. At least, that was the goal, and it was a goal that he'd failed at, as powerful gusts of wind from what Dick could see were batwings on Kurumu's back blew away the smoke he'd generated.

"I'll deal with you two myself!" Kurumu shouted, and flew on her wings after Dick and Moka, who'd fled through the nearest available window. "You don't think you can run from me, do you?"

"Who said anything about running?" Dick retorted snidely. "We just wanted a little fresh air."

Kurumu dove into an attack, and Dick pushed Moka behind him to shield her, however futile the gesture might have been. In the process, his hand caught her rosary necklace with enough force to yank it off her. He looked at what he had in his hand and set his teeth. "Here we go."

Kurumu's attempt at a dive-bomb attack was repelled by the blast of powerful aura coming from Moka as her true, inner self was released. Her skin paled even more as her hair turned white, her curves expanded, her strength grew, and her eyes turned from wide and friendly green to narrow and deadly red. Inner Moka was out to play, and she wasn't happy at all.

"You . . ." she growled at Kurumu.

"What kind of power is this?" Kurumu uttered in fright. Then she gathered herself. "You don't understand! I'm doing this for my people!"

"And that requires every male in this academy as your slave?" Inner Moka retorted.

Kurumu lunged at the Inner Moka for a desperate attack, only for Inner Moka to easily dart out of the way and grab Kurumu by her spade-tipped tail that was sticking out of the back of her skirt. "So slow. Time to know your place!" Using Kurumu's tail as leverage, Inner Moka threw her aside, knocking her back hard into a nearby tree. She stalked toward her fallen foe, ready for the coup de grace.

"What are you doing, Moka?!" Dick shouted.

"Finishing her off," Inner Moka answered. "After what she did, what she was going to do to you . . . she's not getting away with it."

"You don't have to kill her," Dick protested.

"That's how it works," Inner Moka responded. "Kill or be killed."

"We're not animals," Dick gritted out. "There are better ways . . . than to just kill."

"A foolish sentiment," Inner Moka sneered.

"To you, maybe," Dick retorted. "Just know . . . you try to kill her, you'll have to go through me."

Inner Moka laughed out loud. "You have a broken arm. Do you expect to be able to fight me with only three good limbs?"

"I expect to be able to do whatever I have to do to keep you from crossing a line," Dick answered defiantly, as Kurumu looked at him and Inner Moka in astonishment.

"You . . . you're really going to . . ." she uttered, her voice small and almost timid compared to her previous boldness and arrogance. Dick just nodded at her before turning his resolute gaze on Inner Moka, blue meeting red. "So how about it, Moka?"

Inner Moka glowered at Dick. "You are a fool. But an interesting fool. Don't get yourself injured like that again, or I might not be around to save you next time."

Dick snorted softly. "Yeah, sure." He turned back to Kurumu. "So how about it? Release all your lovesick slaves and we'll call it a day?"

"How . . . how can you be . . . ?" Kurumu struggled to speak, and then just burst into tears, flinging herself into Dick's arms. His good arm, anyway.

"Just the way I am, I suppose," Dick mused aloud.

Morning came and Dick's arm was in a special medical cast, one designed to allow him to use his arm and hand much more freely than a regular medical cast while said arm healed. The layer of medical gel keeping his bone aligned perfectly while his arm healed saw to that quite nicely, and now he was on his way to another day in Yokai Academy. On his way, he spotted Kurumu following behind him, waving eagerly to get his attention, as Moka looked on skeptically next to him.

"I just wanted to say . . . I'm so sorry for what I did!" Kurumu blurted out once she'd caught up to them. "It was bad and wrong and terrible and I'll never do it again! From now on, I'm going to win your heart the fair way!"

"And what about everyone else you charmed?" Dick questioned.

"They're free . . . and they don't wanna talk to me," Kurumu confessed. "After what I did, I can't really blame them."

"You work at it hard enough, you'll make it up to them," Dick assured her.

"Thank you so much!" Kurumu exclaimed. "And what about making it up to you?"

"And me," Moka interjected. "But I can let bygones be bygones so long as you don't do it again!"

"Sounds like as good a deal as I can get," Kurumu remarked. "Hey, aren't we supposed to be joining clubs today?"

"Yeah," Dick confirmed. "Though I don't think I'll be good for any club like this." He held up the arm that was still encased in its cast.

"You won't be in that cast forever," Moka remarked. "I'm sure it'll be fine by then. And at least . . ." She drifted closer to Dick, her lips parting. ". . . It won't affect your blood . . ." Then she bit him, and Dick knew a feeling somewhere between agony and ecstasy as she drank from him, the electric sensation of her sucking his blood lighting his neurons on fire.

"Damn it, get off him!" Kurumu yelled, lunging for the couple. Moka had just detached herself from Dick's neck after getting her fill, so he in his slightly woozy condition got a face-full of Kurumu's voluptuous sweater vest-covered bosom. "Oh, don't worry, Richard! I'll take good care of you! I'll nurse you to health just fine . . ."

Dick idly contemplated pretending to have died of suffocation to get Kurumu to back off. Then he brushed off that though; it was a little too cruel, even if it'd teach her a valuable lesson in the dangers of just randomly pressing a guy's face into her chest. Not that it wasn't a pleasant way to die, despite the horrors of asphyxiation. . . .

"Get off him!" Moka yelled. "You're going to suffocate him!"

Kurumu defiantly stuck her tongue out at Moka, who glared heatedly at her. Dick couldn't see what was going on, his face buried in Kurumu's chest as it was, but the atmosphere got a lot heavier from the hostility between her and Moka. This is going to be fun . . . well, not really.

Indeed, when the three had gotten into homeroom, Shizuka Nekonome did reveal that this was the day for joining clubs, with a shameless plug for her Newspaper Club included. According to her explanation, joining clubs was a necessary part of learning how to assimilate into human society and culture, to which one smart-mouthed student remarked that Nekonome wasn't doing such a good job of maintaining her human guise, given her tail sticking out of her skirt. That got the poor bastard's face nearly sliced off by an extremely embarrassed Nekonome, which Dick gaped at, though hardly anybody else seemed to blink an eye.

"Um, Miss Nekonome?" Dick asked.

"Yes, Mr. Grayson?" Nekonome asked, back to her cheerful self.

"If that's how you discipline students that speak out of turn, consider me the best-behaved student you have from now on," Dick replied sardonically.

"Why, thank you, Mr. Grayson!" Nekonome answered cheerfully. "I'm so glad to have a teacher's pet of my own!"

Dick sighed. She really doesn't get sarcasm, does she? Around him, his male classmates groused to themselves and each other about him "hitting on the teacher." Then they groused to each other about how "pretty boys like him seduce[d] all the fine girls in this damn school, even the teachers." This got him some jealous looks from Kurumu and Moka, who then turned and started glaring at each other.

Once homeroom came to an end, Kurumu stood up in front of the class and apologized for putting all the males under her charm and violating their free will the way she had. To Dick's not-quite-surprise, they'd been pretty quick to forgive her, the males at least – All it takes is a pair of nice big breasts, Dick wryly remarked to himself. The female students were considerably more skeptical, judging by how they were looking at Kurumu.

Once that was over with, though, it was time to move on to joining clubs. So far, Dick wasn't finding anything that really appealed to him, though he'd filed the Martial Arts Club in the back of his mind for later consideration. He'd also noted the Acupuncture Club down in his thoughts for later consideration, due to the idea of honing his skills with pressure points. The Mummy Club was a little too weird for his liking, though he offered to come by and learn some ancient history, particularly given how a certain hawk-winged member of the Justice League was a reincarnated Egyptian pharaoh.

The Photography Club had earned Dick's ire when he tried to get Moka to do some "special photos" with him, knowing what he really meant by "special photos." Dick gave the guy a good scare with a death glare that would have done Bruce proud had he been there to see it. The Chemistry Club tried to get Moka to drink some strange bubbling substance out of a beaker that they claimed was a love potion. This pissed him off, too, since after Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, and the Joker, Dick was in no mood to see his friend exposed to strange chemicals by what looked like sad little perverts posing as scientists. They got his replication of the soul-crushing Bat-Glare, too, and they ran off, screaming that they saw murder in his eyes.

Despairing of finding a club that would work for him, Dick heard a female voice calling out to him, "Why hello there! You look lost!"

"No, I'm not . . ." Dick started to say, trailing off when he saw where the voice was coming from. It was a young woman with long, wavy aquamarine hair, dressed in a purple bikini top with a matching sarong wrapped around her hips and what looked like a seashell in her hair. "I'm not lost. At all."

"You could have fooled me," the girl rejoined. "My name's Tamao Ichinose, and I run the Swim Club. You look like you'd make a good swimmer, and we could use some more boys."

Indeed, the Swim Club seemed to entirely consist of young women in bikinis and the young men that were lustfully fawning over them. Dick resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but he could admit to himself how attractive those girls were. "Really?" he said to Tamao. "You really think I'd be a good swimmer?"

"I don't see why not," Tamao answered.

Moka looked distinctly uncomfortable beside Dick, and he turned around to reassure her. "It's ok, Moka. If you're hydrophobic, we don't have to join the Swim Club. We can find something else."

"I don't wanna stand in your way," Moka protested. "If you wanna join, it's ok by me."

"It's not ok by me if you're not going to be able to enjoy it with me," Dick said.

Moka blushed. "That's really sweet of you."

"It sure is," Tamao agreed with a gentle smile that didn't match the hungry look in her eyes. "You're going to make some lucky girl very happy, Richard Grayson."

"How do you know my name?" Dick inquired.

"I make it my business to know the names of everyone I take an interest in," Tamao replied. "Especially sweeties like you." She smiled flirtatiously at him.

"I'm gonna go now," Dick said. "Nice meeting you, Tamao Ichinose. Sorry I couldn't join your club."

As he and Moka turned to leave, he heard Tamao call out to him again. "You know, there are plenty of clubs that advertise by our pool. I'm sure you might find one that suits you if you hang around long enough."

Dick raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Yeah, sure." He sighed. "Fine. I'm gonna humor you. Don't make me regret it."

"Trust me, you won't," Tamao purred.

That was how Dick and Moka came to end up waiting by the pool as Tamao and her Swim Club frolicked in said pool, surrounded by their male adorers. Dick sighed in irritation, having noticed a lot more students coming around the pool, but not so much to advertise their own clubs as to just idle away ogling the pretty girls in swimsuits and bikinis. Next to him, Moka looked like she was enjoying herself even less than Dick was, and that was when Tamao strode out of the pool, her hips swaying invitingly as she approached him. "It's a shame you're sitting here so miserable and bored," she purred. "How about you come in for a swim and cool your head for a while? I promise you won't have to join . . . if that's fine with your girlfriend."

Dick looked askance at Tamao, and turned back to Moka, who gave him a reassuring smile. "It's ok, Dick. I don't want to hold you back from enjoying yourself."

Dick sighed ruefully. "I'll try not to take too long, ok? You should be able to have fun, too."

"All right," Moka conceded, however disappointedly.

Dick stripped down and changed into a pair of swimming trunks and a pair of swim goggles on his head, reluctantly joining Tamao in the swimming pool. At least some physical activity would help take his mind off his troubles, and indeed, he was a very good swimmer. It was one of the things he'd had to learn while training under Bruce, and it was paying off very well, much to the amazement of the girls and the envy of the guys watching him.

"What the hell is this guy not good at?!" somebody shouted.

"Being unattractive to chicks!" another shouted irately.

Indeed, Tamao was smiling quite contentedly – and lustfully – as she saw Dick move through the water. "You swim like a pro. I don't even have to teach you anything. It's such a shame." As she was saying that, she was gliding closer to him, coming up on his back as her bikini-clad breasts pressed on the lean yet muscled expanse of slightly tan flesh. "There's so much I want to show to you, do to you . . ."

Dick was very calm and controlled in his response. After all, it wasn't like he was unfamiliar with women coming on to him, even as strong as Tamao was coming on right now. It was something he'd learned to play to his advantage when he needed, but there was something about Tamao that made him very, very wary around her.

"That's nice, but you're a little close right now," he remarked coolly.

"Only a little?" Tamao teased, pressing even closer, close enough that her breath caused the hairs on the back of his neck to tingle.

Moka scowled jealously at Tamao and Dick. I know I told him to have fun on his own and not worry about me, but . . . I can't stand seeing her all over him! And look at him! Like he doesn't even care!

Boys like him love playing with girls, the voice of the Inner Moka remarked grimly. Don't let him play with you.

But Dick's not like that! Outer Moka protested.

Really? Inner Moka scoffed.

As Moka's inner conflict raged, Dick had managed to extricate himself from Tamao's embrace just in time for Kurumu to take a flying leap off the pool's diving platform, shouting, "Yahoo-hoo!" As she descended, she flipped into a landing that planted her crotch, fortunately covered by the yellow bikini she was wearing, in Dick's face. Also fortunately, Dick had been alert enough to keep his balance while compensating for the sudden addition of Kurumu's weight to his shoulders. He wasn't quite fortunate enough to keep his hands from accidentally grasping the firm, rounded globes of Kurumu's backside, which really made Moka explode in anger.

"What are you doing?!" she shouted at him. "Did you just go along with this so you could meet girls?!"

"Somebody's jealous," Kurumu taunted.

"Not the time, Kurumu," Dick gritted out.

Ignoring the outraged Moka, Kurumu turned her attentions to Dick. "Oh, you like this sort of thing, Dick?" she teased. "If that's it, I'll be glad to serve myself up anytime you like."

Dick gently but firmly lowered Kurumu into the pool, his hands having moved up to her waist instead of her butt, sighing with annoyance. "I wish you two wouldn't do this to each other," he grumbled. "There's no need to be fighting over me."

"Oh, but there is, because there's only one rule between men and women," Tamao interjected, smirking seductively at Dick and then tauntingly at Moka. "Take or be taken."

Moka's teeth were practically grinding against each other in her jealousy, as she eyed Tamao and Kurumu in such a way that if she were Kryptonian, she would have incinerated them both and evaporated the entire pool. This really is starting to become a pain, Dick thought.

As it turned out, the Swim Club also held impromptu talent performances, so Kurumu decided to impress Dick by showing that not all her talents were in her prodigious bosom. Henceforth, she got up on the stage that had been set up and began to sing her heart out.

[Here we go! / Boy, can't you see what I do / To get your attention and your time? / I don't bear these fruits / For just anyone / They bounce and bounce for you! / Ha-ha!]

[I won't let go of the hope / That one day your heart could be all mine / So I play it cool / Be smooth / Strike a sexy pose and wait for you to see / Notice me . . .]

[But then again, it seems you're such a shy boy / Scared to look my way / When I'm trying to show you how much I care / Yahoo-hoo, yahoo-hoo!]

[Sun, sun, sun! / Think of us together under parasols / Lying on the beach without a care at all / And I'll be whispering sweet nothings in your ear.]

[No, no, no! / No one else could ever love you more than me / I love you so much that it's embarrassing / Don't you see? / Look me in the eyes / And tell me / You don't want to give these melons of mine a squeeze!]

Appropriately enough, those "melons," as Kurumu and many others would reference her breasts, bounced on that same final line of the song, and the largely male audience clapped and cheered for her. Dick overheard one of the girls remark to another, "Gotta admit, she's got pipes."

"After what she did to my boyfriend, all I wanna do with her pipes is rip them out and strangle her with them!" the other girl snarled.

Horrible way to die, Dick thought. Gonna have to keep my eye on that one. Violence may come second nature to these yokai, but that's a little extreme, to say the least. On the outside, he just waved to Kurumu, who was basking more in his appreciation than any of the other males that were much more boisterous about their "appreciation."

Alas, the day neared its end, and so did the good times, far more disturbingly than Dick would have figured at first, seeing something that would provide yet more nightmare fodder for him in the nights ahead. It was Tamao and the rest of her Swim Club, biting into the flesh of the boys fawning over them, leeching their life force from them, shown by their skin drying and shriveling as though the aging process had suddenly accelerated for them. His eyes widened with horror at the sight, especially when Tamao sidled up to him with all the look of a shark ready to pounce.

"It's feeding time," she purred, "and I've been looking forward to this since the day I saw you in orientation. You smell so good . . . like a human!" Her mouth opened, revealing rows of sharp teeth that reminded him of a lamprey, as her gills exposed themselves on her cheeks and her ears turned into fins, along with her lower body becoming a fish tail.

Dick dodged her assault and hit her in the stomach with his palm, turning on the taser plug he'd kept hidden in his hand, pumping her full of voltage. The other mermaids moved off their prey to attack Dick in defense of their leader, and Dick dodged their attempts to bite him as well, his agility not impeded by the water thanks to his training. It also helped that he could just hit them in their exposed stomachs and let the palm tasers do their thing, incapacitating them for enough moments to get his distance.

"Look at him go!" Kurumu shouted, astonished and amazed at how gracefully and agilely Dick weaved around and drove back the mermaids attacking him.

"He needs help!" Moka shouted back, knocked out of her jealous funk by the feeding frenzy she'd witnessed from the mermaids and scared of what that meant for Dick.

"I guess Hans Christian Andersen didn't have it quite so wrong, after all," Dick remarked dryly. He turned to Moka in horrified astonishment, noticing her running toward the pool. "Moka, stop! It's ok! I can handle this!"

"You're such a sweet boy," Tamao purred temptingly, the effect somewhat marred by her transformation. "Just like your scent, so much like a human's. It's why I've had my eye on you."

"I'm not gonna be your food," Dick retorted, lunging at her with his palm out for another strike. This time, Tamao dodged, winding herself behind him like a sea serpent coiling for an ambush, only to be ambushed herself by Moka, who had thoughtlessly lunged at Tamao to protect Dick. "Moka, no!"

The effect was immediate as soon as she hit the water, screaming in pain as electricity sparked around her body, her powers being short-circuited, in a manner of speaking, by the water. "Just perfect," Tamao sneered. "Foolish girl."

Goddammit, Dick thought. This must be some kind of genetic indisposition on account of being a vampire.

He snarled in anger at Tamao's mocking, resisting the urge to go after her again in favor of tugging his goggles over his eyes and diving under to save a sinking Moka. He reached her quickly enough, and as his arm stretched out toward her to carry her back to the surface, his hand accidentally brushed her rosary cross, pulling it off. Her vampiric aura immediately exploded from her body, blasting Dick out onto the surface and shocking the mermaids at the sight of Moka's inner power unleashed.

"You're a vampire?!" Tamao cried out in terror. Then she recovered herself, and began laughing.

"What's so funny?" Dick interrogated.

"Vampires are weak in water, and water is our territory!" Tamao crowed. "You don't stand a chance, Moka Akashiya! Drink up!" The mermaids of the Swim Club began using their tails to flick pool water at Inner Moka, repeating their leader's taunt, "Drink up! Drink up!"

"No," Dick snapped. "You drink up." His hands had slipped underwater, and as said hands still had the palm tasers embedded, clapping them together amplified the voltage to the point of electrifying the whole pool, literally shocking the mermaids. Given that he wasn't wearing his Nightwing suit, it wasn't all that good for him, either, but he was bearing it a lot better than the mermaids, who weren't expecting their natural environs to be turned against them like that. "What's the matter? I thought you said this was your territory!"

Down but not out yet, Tamao angrily jumped out of the water to attack Dick, only to be blocked by Inner Moka jumping out as well to strike her down with a powerful kick. "Know your place!" she declared. The kick from Inner Moka had left Tamao floating on the surface of the electrified pool as unconscious as the rest of her mermaids.

Dick looked out at the boys who had been taken in by the mermaids' charms, the lenses of his swimming goggles switched onto "Detective Mode" to analyze their bodies for any signs of life. Thankfully, they were still alive, just severely drained and likely to be severely hydrophobic themselves after recovering.

"That's that," he remarked after getting out of the pool and helping Inner Moka out, too, though she just scowled at him. "I'm sorry . . . about the water and everything."

Inner Moka slapped him, the blow hitting him as hard as either Donna Troy or Starfire ever had. "Do you enjoy playing with girls' hearts?" she asked, her tone furious.

"Um, what?" Dick uttered confusedly as Inner Moka glared angrily at him.

"The outer Moka might have told you it was ok to go play, but she suffered inside, watching you cavort with Tamao and Kurumu," Inner Moka spat. "And even so, she still risked her life for you." She snatched the rosary cross from him and turned to walk away. "I hope you're satisfied with yourself."

Dick sighed guiltily. He hadn't meant to hurt Moka's feelings the way he had. Should have known better, Dick, he heard his old friend Roy Harper's voice in the back of his minds. Girls never mean it when they say they're ok.

The next day came, and Dick arrived to classes without Moka, whom he had not seen since yesterday. He wondered if she was still angry at him, and if that was why she hadn't shown up to walk with him for classes. It didn't help that it was raining today, so even if she wasn't angry, she probably wouldn't be able to show up, anyway, thanks to her weakness to water. He sat glumly in homeroom, idly strumming a beat with his fingers tapping against his desk.

On the upside, the Swim Club had been suspended, along with its members, for feeding off their fellow students and endangering their lives. Considering that the school's mission was to teach yokai how to blend in with humanity, that kind of antisocial behavior obviously couldn't be tolerated, given the fear that it would expose them all to the awareness of humans. They'd be able to return to classes in a week's time or so, but the Swim Club would be officially suspended for the duration of the semester, ensuring that no other students would fall prey to the mermaids' feeding habits.

Dick sighed, only to hear a familiar voice say, "Sorry I'm late. I had to find a way to get through the rain."

"It's ok, Miss Akashiya," Nekonome replied. "Why don't you take your seat?"

Dick let out another sigh, this time in relief, his eyes following Moka, back to her sweetheart pink-haired self, as she approached her seat next to his. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"No need," Moka answered. "I'm all right now."

Dick smiled. "That's a relief."

After homeroom cleared out, Nekonome held Dick, Moka, and Kurumu back for a moment. "Hey, I noticed you three didn't join any clubs yet."

"No, not really," Dick admitted. "I don't think there's any out there that would work for us."

"Then how about the Newspaper Club?" Nekonome suggested. "I could use some more members."

"That works," Dick assented, having a bit of a flashback to The Daily Planet, the newspaper employing Superman's civilian alter ego of Clark Kent and his sometime-love interest Lois Lane, both very accomplished and intrepid reporters. He looked at Moka and Kurumu. "How about you two?"

"Sure," Moka agreed.

"I'll go anywhere you go, Dick!" Kurumu shouted enthusiastically. "After all, you are my Destined One!"

"Huh?" Dick uttered.

"Remember before?" Kurumu asked. "I was doing all that so I could find my Mate of Fate, the one man truly destined for me. After you spared my life and even defended me against the other Moka . . . I realized it was you I'd been looking for all along."

Dick was surprised. She thought it was destiny for them to be together? This . . . could be problematic. Some of that surprise must have shown on his face, because Kurumu gazed lovingly at him. "It's ok, Dick. I can wait for you to come around, and I'll do everything I can to show you we're meant to be!"

That was when she pulled him into her embrace, his face right in the bounty of her chest as she squeezed him tightly against her. That, along with her declaration, made Moka glare jealously at her, and Kurumu just stuck her tongue out to taunt Moka while Dick tried not to panic from being cut off from oxygen by Kurumu's chest. The air greeted him quickly enough when Moka managed to pry him free, only for her to go for his neck, not just to drink his blood, but to mark her territory as well, apparently.

"Moka . . . !" Dick cried out in astonishment, though his outcry sounded a little . . . suspiciously husky, while Kurumu was somewhere between huffing in jealousy and wondering how she could get Dick to make that sound for her.

This . . . could be a problem, Dick thought.

Endnotes: There you have it. I decided to combine the plots of the second and third manga chapters together because I thought it'd be better than trying to write them as separate chapters. Considering that Dick's ring protects him from pretty much all magical effects, particularly the ones meant to control, injure, or kill him, he obviously wouldn't be falling under Kurumu's charm, not to mention that he can fight back in his own right. He's also very observant, so he could tell that Moka was afraid of the water for some reason and thus avoid the horrible misunderstanding that plagued Tsukune and Moka in the canon manga plot.

Also, if you're wondering why it is that tasers seem to work on nearly every foe Dick's encountered so far, it's because nearly all living creatures have a nervous system. It may not work the same way as a human nervous system, but it still conducts bioelectrical energy like humans' nervous systems, and so disrupting the flow of that energy afflicts monsters the same way it does humans. However, it's sheer fighting skill that enables Dick to get that close, and like Kurumu showed when she and Dick fought, it's not as disabling for some monsters as it is for others. As such, he still has to be extremely careful about who he engages in close-quarters combat.

For the record, you will be seeing the rest of the Rosario harem in due time, along with a certain other Robin joining in the fast times at Yokai Academy. As you may have noticed if you reread the first chapter after the alterations I made to it, it's not going to be Jason Todd. Not going to give away all of my plans, though, but you will be astonished when you find out who the serial killer is that Dick went to Yokai Academy to track down.

Oh, and for for those of you wondering about this, the songs used in here are Staind's "All I Want" as Dick's wakeup song and "Nagisa no Deka Melon," Kurumu's song from the same Rosario + Vampire episode adapted here. (It's the English dub lyrics, by the way.) Remember to review, please!


	3. Chapter 3: "Not-So-Slow News Knight"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Batman and all associated characters and properties belong to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Rosario + Vampire and all characters and properties related belong to Akihisa Ikeda, VIZ Media, and Funimation. The writing of this story does not gain any form of material compensation for the writer – myself – monetary or otherwise and is done solely for enjoyment, my own and that of my fans and readers.

Club recruitment had been pretty much done and over, and despite the Swim Club incident, Dick Grayson, Moka Akashiya, and Kurumu Kurono were no worse for wear. They'd even joined a club, after all; their homeroom teacher Shizuka Nekonome's Newspaper Club . . .

. . . But they were the only ones in the clubroom, and waiting and waiting and waiting.

"Are we the only ones who signed up?" Dick wondered aloud.

"Oh, there's one more who's supposed to be here; he's just talking a while to get here!" Nekonome replied cheerily, enjoying her raw goldfish, and no, it wasn't the snack food.

Soon enough, the door opened, and a tall, handsome young man with slightly shaggy, shoulder-length black hair walked through it and into the room. He wore the boys' school uniform, but with the jacket open, minus the tie, and with the top buttons undone, revealing a wolf pendant around his neck . . . and a small bit of his chest to get the ladies' attention. Speaking of getting the ladies' attention, he'd arrived with two full bouquets of flowers, and Dick had the feeling he knew who they were meant for.

"Sorry I'm late," he replied. "Had to do some after-class cramming for a test I've got coming up. What a drag." His expression brightened as soon as he saw Moka and Kurumu, automatically turning on the charm. "But all that just fades away like nothing compared to seeing you two beauties here." He gave each of the girls one of the bouquets in his hands, which prompted a raised eyebrow from Dick and blushes from Moka and Kurumu, stunned by such a handsome young man's attention.

"Why am I not involved in your 'welcome to the club' ritual?" Dick inquired with a teasingly sardonic edge.

"Sorry I missed you there," the young man replied. "Richard Grayson, right? The guy who wiped the floor with Saizo Komiya and held his own against a horde of starving mermaids?"

"I'm already getting a reputation?" Dick wondered amusedly.

"His name's Ginei Morioka," Nekonome explained. "He's a second-year and your sempai. Be good to him!" And that was the last they heard from her for the rest of the day, as she'd up and left them to their own devices.

"All right, here's the thing," Ginei explained, sitting at the front table. "We're a newspaper. That means we gotta get the news. Stop at absolutely nothing except the violation of our journalistic standards and ethics. Be willing to risk our lives and ruffle some feathers to get the story. If you're not ready for that, I suggest you get out right now."

Damn, Dick thought, taken aback by Ginei's sudden intensity. Reminds me of Bruce.

Then Ginei equally suddenly brightened up. "But let's try to get along and be friends, all right? Call me Gin." He smiled, and for some godforsaken reason, his teeth sparkled!

The hell? Dick asked himself. Am I seeing things, or . . . well, can't preclude "or." Too much I've seen already.

The first order of business for the Newspaper Club was to advertise, which involved plastering the walls of Yokai Academy with club posters – within certain limits, of course. This was how Moka and Kurumu ended up standing on their tiptoes at the very top rungs of small ladders, trying their damnedest to get the club posters high enough for Gin's satisfaction, the muscles of their legs straining. "Is this high enough, Gin?" Moka asked.

"No, a little higher would be nice," Gin, crouching below them to observe their progress, remarked.

"Hey, Gin!" a disgruntled Dick interrupted. "They'll fall off if you keep making them stretch that high on those little ladders, and then who's going to put up the posters?"

"Chill, Dickie," Gin replied nonchalantly. "It's gonna be fine. You'll see. They just need to push a little more." He looked up with what some would define as an excrement-consuming grin, and it didn't take a genius to realize where Gin's eyes were aimed, what with his crouching and the incredibly short skirts that were part of the female school uniforms. While his first instinct was to just sock Gin for being such a blatant pervert and peeper, he reasoned that doing so would enable Gin to play victim with Dick as the jealousy-maddened brute that struck him for no good reason. Either that, or Gin would change into his yokai form to avenge himself and the fight would be massively and unnecessarily destructive, which would also cause trouble for Dick.

Time for some diplomacy, he grimly settled on. Aloud, "You know, I can go and get some taller ladders so that Moka and Kurumu would be able to reach more easily. Sound good to anyone?"

"Yes!" Moka and Kurumu shouted at the same time.

Gin sighed, disguising his annoyance. "Might as well. Wouldn't want to see you two fall off and bump your pretty heads. Good thinking, Dickie."

Moka and Kurumu jumped down, relieved at the solution Dick had found, with Kurumu demonstrating her appreciation by jumping straight at Dick for an embrace. As par for the course for a Kurumu hug, it ended with his face smothered in her bountiful bosom and her legs and arms wrapped around him like an octopus – a very sexy octopus, came the thought.

"Will you stop doing that, Kurumu?!" Moka yelled indignantly. "You're going to make him suffocate!"

"You're just jealous that you can't do the same thing to him," Kurumu taunted, sticking her tongue out at Moka.

Gin permitted himself a brief scowl before schooling his features into a more affable expression. "You know, as fun as that must be for him, he still needs to get you those ladders," he snidely commented.

"That's right!" Moka agreed. "And he can't get the ladders for us if you're all over him suffocating him with your boobs!"

"Oh, all right . . ." Kurumu conceded, releasing a red-faced Dick from her grip and allowing him to suck in precious oxygen to refill his lungs.

"Two tall ladders coming up!" Dick replied, dashing off with the small ladders Gin had initially procured and coming back a few minutes later balancing a pair of considerably taller ladders in his arms. "This better?"

"Yeah!" Moka affirmed.

"Sure is!" Kurumu agreed.

Dick proceeded to put down and stand up the ladders so Moka and Kurumu could use them. Indeed, it was much easier to get the club posters at the top of the wall with the new ladders, since standing higher meant that the girls didn't have to strain their legs as much to reach. Dick smiled, satisfied that he'd been able to save Moka and Kurumu from Gin's peeping eyes without embarrassing them in the process, and it had the side benefit of making their task easier, to boot.

He spotted Gin glaring at him, when the girls weren't looking. Dick's response was to smirk, silently communicating in the words of the infamous meme: "U mad, bro?"

The next day, Dick was finally able to take off the cast, and to his surprise, his arm felt as good as new, like it had never been broken at all. Could put the Amazons' Purple Ray Generator to shame, he mused as he made his way to the next Newspaper Club meeting. Once there, he spotted Moka with her head in an art book. "Didn't know art was one of your many talents," he remarked curiously.

Moka quickly closed the book, startled by the sound of his voice. "Richard!"

"So you don't want me to see what you're working on?" Dick surmised. "Fine by me. I'll wait till you're ready."

"Well, you can show me, can't you?" Gin interjected. "I won't tell Dickie here, that's how much I really love you!"

Dick scowled. Declarations of love weren't the kind that could be made willy-nilly, with no regard for the seriousness of that kind of commitment. It was why he'd been as kind as he could manage when he'd rebuffed Starfire; he did like her and find her fun to be around, in her own strange way, but it was not on the level of love and he wasn't going to pretend otherwise. The kicked-puppy expression in her solid green eyes still haunted him to this day.

"Gin!" Moka protested, sounding about as scandalized as Dick felt. His grim ruminations were broken by a familiar whooping sound . . . and the sensation of his face being buried in a pair of large, soft, fleshy pillows he'd gotten very familiar with since making Kurumu's acquaintance.

"Another day in the Newspaper Club with you!" she squealed. "I love you, my Mate of Fate!"

Dick would've groaned in protest, but he was too busy not wasting what little breath he'd managed to hold onto before Kurumu had gotten him. He really hoped he wasn't going to end up on the end of another "kicked-puppy" stare when he admitted to Kurumu that he didn't quite feel the same way about her that she did about him. Hell, he wasn't sure how he felt about her, at least on levels deeper than finding her nice to be around when she wasn't trying to smother him in her bounteous bosom.

"Ok, you can get off him now," Gin groaned, though it sounded like he was more annoyed that Kurumu wasn't doing that to him instead of Dick. Kurumu reluctantly eased off Dick and took her seat, as did Dick. "All right, people, we've got our first case – in the past week, eight girls have disappeared from around here. We have no idea how it happened or who or what took them, but we're gonna find out, or our name isn't the Newspaper Club!"

"You're sounding serious," Dick mused, though he wasn't really in a joking mood. Those eight girls who'd disappeared . . . it seemed like it was time for Nightwing to make another appearance at Yokai Academy. Speaking of, he remembered the case he'd originally come to investigate, those boys who'd been killed at the bus stop going to Yokai Academy. He'd had no luck figuring out who was behind those murders, and the girls' disappearance could be worth looking into to see if it had any connection to the murders he'd come to investigate.

"Of course I am," Gin replied, pulling out a folder. "Take a look and you'll see why." He opened the folder and spread out the pictures of the eight girls.

"Oh, I see why," Kurumu remarked snidely.

"Yeah, those sweet girls are gonna be all over their dashing rescuer when he finds them," Gin replied with unabashed smugness.

"And that would be you, right?" Dick surmised with dry sarcasm in his voice.

"Yeah, I somehow don't see you as the 'dashing rescuer' type," Kurumu said, rolling her eyes.

"Then who do you see in that role?" Gin asked challengingly. "Please. Name a better leading man for that than me."

"Nightwing!" Kurumu declared, and Dick schooled his face to avoid any trace of shock or surprise. Did she figure it out? I haven't even worn that costume in front of her!

Then she went on. "Arriving from shadows to rescue fair maidens in need and beat the tar out of dastardly villains! Total hard-body! Yeah, him, I can see rescuing those girls!"

It was all Dick could do not to laugh. Moka held in a blush, having seen Dick in his "work clothes" when he'd saved her from Saizo Komiya. Kurumu had it really bad for his masked alter ego, it seemed.

"Do you even know what that guy looks like?" Gin scoffed. "He could be real hideous for all you know."

"Shows what you know," Kurumu retorted.

"Look, have we tried figuring out what all those girls have in common?" Dick interjected, breaking up the nascent argument.

"Other than they're really hot?" Gin questioned rhetorically.

"Yeah, other than that," Dick confirmed. "Did they go to the same classes? Did they live near each other in the dorms? Did they have lunch together? Stuff like that."

"A real Sherlock Holmes we got here," Gin grumbled.

"I love that show," Dick commented with a smile.

That was how the Newspaper Club's investigation of the eight missing girls began. Dick, however, decided to carry out his own angle of the investigation, and it was an angle that required some heavy-duty stealth. Fortunately, he'd been taught by a master and was now rather proficient himself thanks to that master.

Nightfall came, and out came Nightwing, sneaking into the Yokai Academy's administrative building to get at the files of those eight girls. He could at least see what they all had in common that way, and fortunately, he had his night vision activated in his mask lenses. It was rather surprising that there was so little security at the administrative building, but he wasn't going to count his chickens before they hatched. There could be deadly traps inside the facility that he hadn't seen yet.

Detective Mode was also active, pointing out likely points for the activation of traps and helping him move away from those. It was also a good source for hiding spaces when he needed to avoid getting seen by what few security personnel there were in this building. Once that was over with, he continued his stealthy movement through the facility, finally reaching the room where the student files were kept by crawling through the vents. They were much smaller and narrower than the vents commonly seen in movies and TV, but Nightwing was flexible enough to fit and move; he was a circus brat by birth, after all.

Descending into the room as soundlessly as possible – very possible when one was a master escape artist and acrobat taught by Batman – Nightwing began looking through the folders. How old-fashioned, he thought to himself.

About two hours later, Nightwing was making his way out of and away from the Yokai Academy administrative building. He'd read through the files of the missing girls, enough to twig onto the only thing all eight of them shared in common.

Hitomi Ishigami's art class, which brought two possibilities to mind. First, the kidnapper was targeting students in Ishigami's class as part of some attempt to strike at Ishigami more indirectly. Second, and worse, Ishigami herself had something to do with those disappearances . . . or was even the one behind them. Fortunately, he'd gotten Ishigami's file from the office where teachers' records were kept, and he'd hold onto it for now, for further study in addition to keeping a closer eye on the woman.

Then he remembered. Earlier that day, in the afternoon after the Newspaper Club meeting had finished, he'd escorted Moka to see Ishigami for some afterschool art lessons. He still remembered her parting bite and the requisite drink of his blood she'd taken, and her promise that she'd still work hard for the club and help with the investigation.

Yes. Hitomi Ishigami did indeed merit closer watching. For now, Nightwing had to make sure he got back to his dorm without being seen, or causing any suspicion to be cast on Dick Grayson's identity and purpose. He could burn the midnight oil reading Ishigami's file more easily back in his own dorm room than he could on the outside where anyone could spot him. He just hoped those meditative techniques Batman had taught him for rejuvenating himself in lieu of sleep would work. Batman could recoup his missed hours of sleep in a Wayne Enterprises board meeting as Bruce Wayne, but Dick Grayson couldn't fall asleep in class; he didn't need Nekonome slicing up his face.

The next day, Dick was in art class, closely following Ishigami with his eyes, studying her for any tells or other abnormalities – other than the expected kind from being a yokai in Yokai Academy – that could lead to a connection between her and the disappeared girls, or their abductor. He remembered from her file that she was a very passionate lover of art, extoling art for how long-lasting it was, how something made centuries ago could persevere all the way into the modern age and be discussed and admired even to this day. Passion like that, he could respect, and it certainly helped her rapport with her students, particularly her female students, who seemed almost besotted with Hitomi Ishigami.

Not that he couldn't see why they would be. Ishigami was a tall drink of water, at least by Japanese standards; Starfire likely still had half a foot on her. Her pale blondish-green hair was tied into long, thin braids with ends resembling paintbrush tips, the braids framing what was a quite lovely face. She wore a bandana that wrapped around the top of her head and an opened smock to protect her clothes from paint. He watched Ishigami banter with some of the female students, especially one who wasn't even in the class but said she was skipping gym for Ishigami; she was even still wearing the bloomers and T-shirt of her gym uniform, too!

After class, Dick was surprised to find Ishigami pulling him back from leaving with the other students, particularly Moka. "What is it, Ishigami-sensei?" he asked.

"I noticed you staring at me before, like you wanted to ask something," the art teacher replied, looking at him appraisingly.

"Yeah," Dick admitted. "I'm with the Newspaper Club, and we've been doing a report on some girls who went missing recently. The only thing we've been able to figure out that they all had in common was being in your art class."

"And you're worried the kidnapper is either someone else in my class or even someone targeting me through my students?" Ishigami surmised.

"Yeah," Dick confirmed. "Pretty much that." He held back his suspicion that she was the one behind their disappearances; as a student, he couldn't just make accusations like that about a teacher, let alone to her face.

"Are you worried because Moka's taking afterschool lessons with me?" the art teacher surmised again, sounding concerned.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Dick wondered.

"I'm neither blind nor deaf, Grayson-san," Ishigami answered. "I see how you two are around each other, and I hear the rumors, too. You're awfully close . . . so I can understand why you wouldn't want to see anything happen to her. Don't worry, she's in the best of hands with me." She smiled beatifically, a smile that made Dick want to trust and believe everything she said. Trained instinct kept him from doing that, though, and she seemed to pick up on it, hence her next words. "I can arrange a meeting between us tonight, before Moka comes in for my lessons. That way I can ease your concerns and help your investigation in any way I can. Will that do?"

"Yeah, Ishigami-sensei," Dick assented. "That'll do fine."

"Good," Ishigami agreed with another smile. "And you know . . . if you want to take lessons, too . . . I'm sure I can fit you into my schedule."

"Thank you, Ishigami-sensei," Dick said. "I'll let you know for sure when I see you tonight."

"Splendid, Grayson-san," Ishigami responded, before letting Dick go.

No sooner had Dick stepped out into the hall than he'd run into Gin. "What've you got?" Gin asked.

"What I've got is that all of the girls that went missing were in Ishigami's class, and she wants to talk to me some more about it, help with the investigation," Dick replied. "You?"

"Same as you, minus Ishigami wanting to talk to me," Gin answered. "Damn, Dickie, how do you do it?"

"Do what?" Dick prompted, raising a challenging eyebrow.

"Never mind," Gin grumbled. "I was talking to those girls' friends, people who knew them and interacted with them, and they said the same thing. Ishigami invited them all for some kind of private modeling thing, and that was the last they were heard from. Private modeling . . ." Gin chuckled perversely.

"That must be where the kidnapper got to them, while they were on their way to Ishigami," Dick surmised. And that's what's going to happen to Moka if I don't get the drop on this kidnapper first.

"So . . . stakeout?" Gin offered.

"You just wanna see what kind of modeling Ishigami's asking the girls to do for her," Dick snidely remarked.

"If it helps save another girl from disappearing," Gin answered coolly. "And think about what I'll get for being the hero of the hour."

Dick shook his head slowly, with unspoken derision, and turned to walk away . . . just in time to run into a dashing Kurumu. He'd briefly experienced the sensation of her bountiful bosom bouncing into his face before finding her sprawled on the floor, her frilly white panties showing thanks to the magic of Newton's Law. "Kurumu! Are you all right?!" he asked, helping her up.

"I didn't know you were that much of a hard-body," Kurumu uttered, slightly dazed as she looked at him. Then her eyes widened, as though in a panic. "I have to go!" Not giving him any room to speak or ask why, Kurumu dashed away from him in the opposite direction.

"Whoa . . ." Gin remarked, whistling. "Someone seems to be in a hurry. Hot date?"

Dick narrowed his eyes slightly. "Can't worry about that now," he said, more to himself than to Gin.

That night, Dick was once again in his Nightwing garb, showing up "early" for his meeting with Ishigami to get to the bottom of who was behind all those missing girls from her art class. He watched, lurked, and moved in the dark shadows surrounding Yokai Academy, evading detection while keeping his eyes out for anything that could lead to the kidnapper striking again. In the process of this, he ended up sneaking through Yokai Academy to the school art room.

He'd reached the art locker when he started to hear soft, whimpering noises, as though someone was crying. Curious, he crept in closer, closer to what he could see was a locker bolted shut, hearing the crying sounds get louder as he approached. Checking the lock, Nightwing drew a pick from his utility cuff and manipulated it through the keyhole to unlock the bolt. The door fell open . . . and he was startled by what he saw. Statues of girls, girls whose faces he recognized from their pictures, the pictures of the very girls whose disappearances he'd been investigating. And one he recognized in particular . . .

"Ishigami-sensei, I'm skipping gym to have fun with you!"

A beatific smile and benevolent laugh. "Oh, you!"

"What are you doing here?!" a voice thundered at him, and Dick immediately sprang into a combat position, seeing Ishigami glaring at him furiously. "Are you some kind of thief, here to steal my art?!"

"That's a nice way of putting it," Nightwing retorted. "I know what you did with the girls. I know why those statues are crying!" Indeed, the analytical function of his lenses had shown that the "statues" had heartbeats and were indeed taking in oxygen, or trying to; they just couldn't talk or move.

But they could cry.

"So you know, do you . . . ?" Ishigami mocked, her beautiful face twisted into a wrathful sneer. "Then I can't let you –"

She was interrupted by Moka bursting in. "I heard you shouting, and I was worried that somebody came in to hurt you!"

"Why, yes . . ." Ishigami replied, her demeanor suddenly more timid. "This is the one who's been kidnapping my girls! Don't let him take you, too!"

"But Ishigami-sensei . . . that's –!" Moka protested, seeing Dick costumed and ready for a fight.

"You have to help me stop him, before he gets out and kidnaps more girls!" Ishigami pleaded with Moka, sounding frantic and fearful.

"Moka, it's a trick!" Nightwing exclaimed. "She's the one who kidnapped all those girls!" He threw open the locker where the petrified girls were being kept, showing them in their full glory and horror to Moka. "All of them were in her art class! All of them were asked for some private modeling after school! That was when they disappeared!"

"Ishi . . . Ishigami-sensei . . ." Moka gasped out in horror. "He's . . . he's not . . ."

Ishigami sighed, her feigned timidity fading into a look of pure insanity. "He's not lying. Sorry you had to see this, but now that you have, I can't let you go, either," she purred menacingly. "I was hoping to do this later, but now's the best chance I'll ever get!" Her braids lunged at Moka, the tips opened into fanged, snakelike maws. Acting quickly, Nightwing drew out a sharpened Birdarang and threw it at Ishigami's snake-braids, slicing off their fanged tips before darting protectively in front of Moka.

Ishigami hissed with rage and pain. "My hair . . . that was my hair . . . my beautiful hair . . . and you . . ." She screamed her outrage and her remaining snake-braids attacked Dick and Moka, with Dick pushing Moka out of the way and dodging the snake-braids acrobatically.

She's a Gorgon, Nightwing realized. Not strong enough to petrify people with a mere look like the original Gorgon, but those venomous snakes she has for hair can do the job just fine. Sure wish I had Wonder Woman here. Then he felt something in his hand, and a brief moment spared to look revealed to him that it was Moka's rosary cross. Then again, I might have something a little better than Wonder Woman in my corner.

Indeed, now that Moka's rosary cross had been removed, her unrestrained power was spiking with tremendous force, seeming to blanket the art room in foreboding crimson light. Her true self once again freed, the white-haired Moka Akashiya gazed darkly upon the one who had intended to add her to her twisted art collection.

"You're a sick excuse for an artist, Ishigami," Inner Moka spat, as Nightwing landed beside her, feeling heavier than usual, his face turned away from her.

"You two can't even understand my art!" Ishigami ranted. "I can't help myself around such beauty! I need to preserve it forever, untouched by the ravages of time!"

"You can't help yourself?" Nightwing repeated, scoffing though his throat felt somewhat heavier, too. "Heard that one before."

Ishigami laughed out loud, her voice reverberating with mad glee. "Oh, I was not expecting this . . . but no reason not to branch out, I suppose. You're not so sore on the eyes, either."

Inner Moka gasped, realizing what Ishigami had done. It seemed that in the moment Nightwing had taken to look at the rosary he had accidentally tugged off Moka's neck trying to protect her, Ishigami's snake-braids had bitten his face, the only unprotected flesh left by his costume. Currently, the left side of his face was rapidly calcifying, as was the left side of his body, period, given his heavier landing when he'd stopped his acrobatics.

"Don't worry about me, Moka," Nightwing replied, drawing his escrima sticks despite how much heavier his left side was becoming than his right. "We can still take her."

Inner Moka charged Ishigami, whose remaining snake-braids lunged at her. "I've never had a couple before!" Ishigami shrieked.

"And you won't have him!" Inner Moka shouted, throwing herself into a flying roundhouse that once again displayed her panties, though her foot struck its target in Ishigami's face. The kick came with such force that Ishigami's neck nearly snapped from how hard her head had been wrenched, as Inner Moka gracefully landed on the floor. "Know your place."

That was the last thing Dick Grayson clearly remembered before passing out from all of his bits that had turned to stone. Clearly, that protective ring he'd gotten from Bruce's friend didn't cover everything. At least those girls will be all right, he thought to himself. They'll be safe . . .

It was a few days later that the Newspaper Club was trying to get the new edition featuring the exposure of Ishigami's crimes ready for print. To Dick's surprise, Outer Moka had given the credit for the girls' rescue to Nightwing, which had made Kurumu swoon at the thought of "such a dashing hero" on the grounds of Yokai Academy. It had also made Gin fume with jealousy at "some costumed punk getting all the glory" and interrogate Dick on whether or not he'd seen him, which he'd answered by saying that Ishigami had tried to turn him to stone to keep him quiet and Nightwing had saved him.

The girls had recovered quite well; without steady doses of Ishigami's toxin to keep them paralyzed, they had regained their mobility. Dick, having been exposed only once, recovered even faster, though it was an adventure and a half getting back to his dorm while his body was petrifying. Moka was a lot stronger than she looked, even in her Outer form, to carry him back like that, not wanting him to be seen in his Nightwing garb and thus reveal his identity. He owed her for that, he thought, and he'd find some way to pay her back.

At the moment, he was preoccupied with thoughts of Kurumu, who hadn't been showing up for club meetings as much recently. When she did show up, she was rather late, almost at the very end of the meetings, and she was very evasive about her whereabouts. Getting a read for her body language and facial twitches, he could tell something was very, very wrong.

Was she being blackmailed? Threatened? Stalked? Remembering her Yokai Academy Harem Transformation Plan, Dick could see some of the girls who had romantic interest in the boys she'd seduced looking for revenge of some kind. The other theory was that it was one of the male students going after her, which wouldn't surprise Dick, either, given the lack of self-control a lot of boys seemed to have when it came to especially attractive girls. He still remembered Saizo with a slight shudder when it came to what he could've done to Moka had Dick not intervened as Nightwing.

It all came to a head when upon the next Newspaper Club meeting, all their files and information that had gone into preparing the paper's next edition had just vanished. "What the hell is this?!" Gin yelled irately. "What the hell is this?!"

"Where did they all go?" Moka asked in dismay.

Dick chanced a look at Kurumu, who looked just as shocked and horrified, but seemed to not be entirely surprised. "Kurumu?" he whispered.

"I . . . I have to . . ." Kurumu stammered.

"Are you going to leave again!?" Moka shouted furiously at her. "After this?! Don't you care what happens to the Newspaper Club!?"

"I . . . I . . ." Kurumu couldn't work out a sentence, and tears of frustration and sorrow built up in her eyes as she turned and ran out of the club.

"Kurumu!" Dick shouted, tensing to go after her.

"No, Richard," Gin averred. "We have to stay here and finish, with or without her."

Dick sighed and turned to Moka, but she looked every bit as adamant as Gin sounded. "This . . . this is just . . ."

Something caught his eye as he turned back to the desk, something shoved underneath the drawer as though crudely hidden. He pulled it open and took out the hidden object, an envelope addressed, "To my sweet Kurumu." He opened the envelope, and out fell pictures of Kurumu in various degrees of undress, looking like she'd just gotten out of the shower, gotten changed for bed, or was in the process of getting changed for bed or dressed for school. He fought down a blush as his eyes widened with horror when he realized just what was going on.

"Hey, what're you looking at?" Gin asked, and swiped the envelope and its contents out of Dick's hands with preternatural speed. "Whoo, somebody's looking hot."

Dick growled angrily. "That's Kurumu."

"Don't I know it?" Gin replied smugly. "Guess we know they're real."

"Kurumu?" Moka repeated. "What –?"

A subtle taser-enhanced palm strike had loosened Gin's grip enough for Dick to take back the envelope and the salacious pictures inside. "Somebody took those without her permission, without even her knowledge. Some creep just slipped into her room and took pictures of her to satisfy his perversion." As even as he sounded when he was saying those words, his tone seethed with tightly controlled rage, the look in his eyes making it very clear what would happen to whomever had taken those pictures.

"Then that's why she hasn't been showing up," Moka concluded, remorse in her eyes and voice at the realization. "Someone's been threatening her with those pictures."

"Probably to show 'em off all over the school," Gin surmised.

"Probably right," Dick agreed, making his way out of the Newspaper Club's meeting room to find Kurumu, before it was too late.

Meanwhile, Kurumu had made her way to the gnarled Monster Tree that was the centerpiece of Yokai Academy's surrounding forest. Sitting in said tree was none other than a sweat-slick, slightly pudgy boy with stringy hair, named Nagare Kano, rifling through the Newspaper Club's files. "So this is what you and your friends do. Pathetic," he remarked.

"You give that back!" Kurumu screamed at him. "Give that back right now, or I'll make you suffer!"

Kano chuckled mockingly. "You're really going to make me suffer? After how you strung me along and threw me aside as soon as that pretty boy came along?! No, no, no . . . you owe me, Kurumu Kurono. And you'll keep doing as I say, unless you want me to destroy this crap. Seriously, it is crap. I could take better pictures than this."

"Yeah, like the pictures you made me let you take of me in those outfits!" Kurumu retorted, her tone full of anger at her humiliation.

Kano chuckled and let out a low contented groan as he looked at those pictures he'd forced Kurumu to let him take; some had her in a gym uniform, some in a corset and panties, some in a very thin yukata, and some in sexy lingerie. They really brought out her luscious body quite well, he thought, and he let out another perverse chuckle. "Yeah, those," he commented wistfully. "Want me to show them to everybody in this school so they can all see the real you?"

"I don't care what you do to me, but leave my friends' work out of it!" Kurumu yelled. "You can take all the pictures of me you want, you can show them to everyone in school, but you're not going to do anything to my friends' work, or you'll pay!"

Kano chuckled darkly, before letting out a straightforward deranged laugh. "Screw this! I'm a yokai! I don't need this blackmail crap!" His skin became even sweatier than before, but a closer look would reveal that what leaked from his pores wasn't actually sweat, but slime. Realizing what her tormentor was transforming into, Kurumu broke into a dead run, as Kano gave chase, his slimy appendages grazing her upper body. She had just barely managed to reach the storage room for gym equipment, locking it behind her in hopes it would keep him out.

It didn't. Instead, she could see him sliding and slipping through the cracks in the doorway, his boneless body flattening and distorting to ease his way in. Kurumu panted, not just with fear, but with unnatural exhaustion; whatever slime was coming out of him, the scent of it was making her tire and weaken much quicker than normal.

"See this?" the slippery yokai taunted. "There's no place I can't get into, no door that's closed to me!"

"I'm not the first, am I?" Kurumu uttered in horrified realization. "How many other girls have you done this to, you sicko!?"

"I lost count somewhere along the way," Kano admitted. "But you're the sweetest I've had by far, Kurumu Kurono!"

Just then, the outdoor access was slashed open by a plasma torch and the last person Kurumu was expecting stepped in between the flaming edges. "Nightwing!" she exclaimed.

Indeed, it was Nightwing, looking far more impressive than he had even in the picture she kept in her locker. He brandished a pair of sleek black sticks, his body sheathed in sleek black tactical armor with a blue stripe spreading over his chest and shoulders like the outstretched wings of a bird. A vaguely bird-shaped black domino mask covered his eyes, their color concealed by whiteout lenses, and a matte black facemask covered everything below the domino mask.

"Nagare Kano," Nightwing spat, his facemask filtering his voice.

"You know my name," Kano hissed.

"Recognized your face . . . and your stench," Nightwing answered. He turned to Kurumu. "Follow me, I'll get you out of here."

Kurumu nodded shakily, but eagerly. That was when the storage locker door was busted open by Moka. "Kurumu! I'm sorry for all those things I said! We found out what was really going on and we wanted to help you!"

"'We'?" Kurumu repeated. "Where's Richard?"

"Oh, that tears it!" Kano yelled. "I'm right here, and that goddamn pretty boy is all you can think about?!" He hissed with sadistic eagerness. "Moka, Moka, Moka . . . I was gonna go after you next, but seeing you right here is just too good an opportunity to pass up!"

"Stay away from her!" Nightwing snarled, and lunged at Kano, small finlike blades popping out of his bracers and flaring with electric light as he slashed at Kano, who slipped right out of Nightwing's grasp.

"I don't think so, Mr. Big-Time Hero," Kano taunted. "You see, I don't care how you got here, but I'm gonna send you right back to your Bat-Daddy in a heap of crushed bones!"

"A madslug," Nightwing muttered. "No wonder you could slip through so easily." His attention was drawn away from Kano by the sound of Moka's cough and then her falling on one knee. "Moka!"

"He . . . his slime . . . it's sapping our strength!" Kurumu explained, her eyes full of fear for Moka.

"And now you're mine!" Kano screamed, lunging for Moka as Nightwing spun to block him.

"You stay away from them!" Kurumu exclaimed, her eyes glowing with her wrath. To the surprise of everyone, Kano especially, the roots of the Monster Tree began to reach into the storage locker and grab onto Kano, trapping his unnaturally malleable body. "You don't touch them! You don't touch them, or you pay!" As she screamed her furious determination to protect Moka and Nightwing, the Monster Tree's roots squeezed Kano hard enough that even his malleable physique couldn't take it and he fell unconscious. As soon as that happened, the roots vanished into thin air and the Monster Tree stood like it had never deviated from its original state.

"What . . . ?" Nightwing uttered.

A succubus is a truly formidable opponent when angered, came Inner Moka's observation from within Moka's rosary seal. They can conjure lifelike illusions that can even kill if the succubus puts real power into them. Truly impressive, Kurumu Kurono.

Before Nightwing could really react to what Kurumu had done or ask how she'd done it, she ran past him to get the Newspaper Club material that had been stolen by Kano. She collapsed on her knees with relief and exhaustion when she had them in her hands. "The important thing is . . . I got them back. We got them back!" She started running back to Nightwing and Moka with the club's material for the paper in her hands. "Thank you so much, Night –!"

When she got a good look, though, he was already gone, causing her to blink in confusion. "Moka, did you see that?!" Kurumu asked.

"See . . . what?!" Moka exclaimed, also surprised at the sudden realization that Nightwing was nowhere to be seen. "How did he do that?!"

Kurumu blushed with amazement. "So that's what it's like . . ."

"What what's like?" Moka asked.

"For Nightwing to save the maiden and then disappear into the night before she can give him his rightful reward for rescuing her!" Kurumu swooned.

"It's still daylight, Kurumu," Moka corrected, but it was no use; Kurumu was in her own happy world where she was giving Nightwing his "rightful reward" for rescuing her. Just as well, though, since even Moka almost couldn't tell it was Dick thanks to that facemask he'd been wearing. She doubted Kurumu got all that good a look at him, so the secret of Nightwing's identity remained between her and Dick for the time being.

Endnotes: There we go. I've managed to meld the plots from the sixth and seventh manga chapters of Rosario + Vampire into one chapter, with foreshadowing thrown in for Gin along with his intro. Sorry if it seems jumbled or rushed; I'm still trying to work this out. For the record, there is definitely going to be more on the way, as Nightwing's ring very clearly doesn't shield him from everything, at least not if it's injected directly into his bloodstream, not to mention Gin's role in the story, as alluded to before, though fans of the manga/anime should know already. Speaking of Gin, for those wondering about the hidden taser Dick tagged him with to get Kurumu's pictures back, remember that he was trained by Batman, and in an environment like Yokai Academy, you do not want to be an unarmed human.

The introductions of Yukari Sendo and Mizore Shirayuki will be coming along soon enough, at least next chapter for Yukari if I can help it and Mizore a tad later. Some friendly faces from the Batcave and Titans Tower will be joining in the fun as well, particularly Tim Drake, the new Robin Bruce and Dick have taken under their wing. Of course, there's still the matter of those murders Nightwing came to Yokai Academy to investigate, and that's going to cross into the confrontation with the Public Safety Committee in a big way down the line. If I haven't turned you off with all this wait time by now, then you're welcome to stick around and see how it all unfolds!


	4. Chapter 4: "The Knight, the Witch, and the Wolf"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Nightwing and related characters and properties belong to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Rosario + Vampire and related characters and properties belong to Akihisa Ikeda, VIZ Media, and FUNimation. I make no money from writing or posting this story and I get no other form of material compensation for it, either. All I get in return is the intangible satisfaction that someone is reading this.

"A vigilante wandering these halls . . ." he snarled. "I will not allow it. I will not allow some ruffian to do my work!"

"The gall of these wenches," a female voice hissed from the shadows. "They praise a man whom they know nothing about. Alas, we know no more than they do."

"That . . . is a problem, Keito," the mysterious man stated grimly. "The longer this man is allowed to walk free, the more likely it is that he may become a rallying symbol against us. Already the ingrates are whispering about how he's supposedly done more for them in half of one semester than we've done for them all our existence."

"Swine . . ." Keito snarled.

"About the only ones who've actually seen him are Kurumu Kurono and Moka Akashiya," the man recalled. "We should revisit them in the near-future, see if their memory can't be jogged for any pertinent details that could help us."

"What if they don't cooperate?" Keito asked.

"Given the right incentive . . . they will," the man replied, his voice turning low and ominous on those last two words.

On the topside of Yokai Academy, grades were out for the math midterms. Shockingly similar to human high schools, a number of students were deeply dismayed about their grades and not shy about expressing it.

"Dammit! I'm screwed!"

"What the hell is this, I don't even –!?"

"I'm dead meat! They'll cook and eat me alive for this!"

All right, the last part wasn't that similar to human high schools, as Richard Grayson had the feeling that poor soul meant that horrific prediction literally. Given that this was a school for teaching yokai how to fit in with humans and how much he'd seen that yokai cultural norms differed from that of humans, he would not be that surprised if it wasn't gross hyperbole. He idly looked for his name on the roster of student grades, overhearing both distressed cries of doomsday from those whose grades were less than satisfactory and cries of adulation from Moka's fan club, highly impressed with her scoring in the top 20.

Specifically, Moka was the thirteenth top grade in the math midterms, which Dick had to smile at. One smart – and sweet – cookie, that Moka Akashiya, he thought to himself. Then he had to tune out the squeals of his own fan club, chattering excitedly about what a "smart and cool guy" he was. Nothing he wasn't used to, but the girls back home weren't quite so high-pitched. As it was, he was at the bottom of the ten highest grades in the math midterms, precisely number 10. Not bad for not being the polymath genius of the family, if I say so myself.

His musings were interrupted by Moka sidling up to him. "You did really well, Richard," she complimented.

"Not that well," Dick tried to downplay it. "There's still nine people who did better."

"But I didn't study with any of them, did I?" Moka replied with a coy smile.

"No, you certainly didn't, unless you've been holding out on me," Dick jibed with a teasing grin.

"I wouldn't study with anyone but you!" Moka declared, blushing cherry pink. "You're the only one who lets me drink his blood!"

Dick chuckled softly. "Well, I do my best to keep it good and healthy for you. Nutrition is seriously important."

Moka giggled sweetly. She'd never thought she'd ever have this, someone who'd laugh and joke about her drinking his blood as though it were nothing to be scared or ashamed of. She had quite a friend in Richard "Nightwing" Grayson, and she was determined to keep him, no matter what Kurumu or other girls might have to say about that.

Speaking of Kurumu, the busty succubus had just dive-bombed her breasts into Dick's face. "Oh, I'm so happy I found you! I didn't do too well this time around, and I think I'm really going to need your help, you smart, sexy stud, you!"

"Kurumu!" Moka exclaimed in protest. "He can't help you with your classes if you asphyxiate him!"

Realizing this as fact, Kurumu let Dick off her chest just enough for him to be able to breathe. "Yeah, probably not the best idea to suffocate the guy you want as a tutor," Dick commented.

"You think that's all I want you for?" Kurumu teased.

"Oh, and what else do you want me for?" Dick teased back. "I'm up for almost anything, just run it by me first."

Kurumu chuckled flirtatiously. "I'm not a running kind of girl, but if that's your thing, I'll try it out. Maybe you could show me some . . ." Her voice lowered, taking on a slightly sultrier cadence. ". . . Techniques."

Moka watched the banter between her two friends – one also her object of affection, the other also her rival for the first – and tried not to feel too jealous. Then again, if you wanted him so badly, maybe you should be a little bolder yourself, Moka's inner self remarked from within the rosary seal.

Meanwhile, the merry almost-couple and their friend (friend to Dick, friend and rival to Moka) were being watched by a young girl in a witch costume, who gazed enviously at them. Her viewing was interrupted by a tall, lanky teenager flanked by his two cronies, whom she recognized as her class representative and his entourage.

"Nice job, Yukari," the class representative snidely remarked. "Number one in the whole school. Real smart, aren't you?"

"Not smart enough to know she's supposed to be wearing a uniform instead of a costume," one of the representative's cronies jeered.

"Yeah, you think you're so special, aren't you?" the representative sneered at the small girl. "Just because you skipped straight into high school."

Yukari looked down at the ground, her small body quivering with repressed tears . . . at least before a small rock floated from the ground and struck the representative in the back of the head. Then she started guffawing out loud, revealing that it had been laughter she was repressing, not tears. "Got you good!" she shouted triumphantly.

"You little –!" the representative snarled, about to hit her when he realized that he couldn't move his arm, as his cronies gazed in surprise. He looked in the same direction as his cronies, and saw Dick Grayson himself gripping his arm tightly to keep him from using it to strike Yukari.

"I saw everything," he stated coldly.

"Let go!" the representative snarled. "Do you even know who you're dealing with?!"

"I know I'm dealing with someone who should set a better example for the class he represents than bullying someone for making him feel stupid," Dick answered, his calm, almost relaxed tone belying the ice in his eyes. He let go of the representative's arm. "Wanna try that again with someone closer to your size?"

The representative would have lunged to strike Dick with the same arm that had been prevented from striking Yukari . . . if it didn't feel like deadweight dangling from his shoulder. "What . . . what the hell did you do?!" he asked furiously.

"Pressure points," Dick replied. "Choked off the blood flow to your arm. It'll wear off eventually."

"Did you see that!?" an onlooker exclaimed in astonishment.

"That was so badass!" another onlooker shouted.

"So cool!" a third onlooker, female, cried out.

The representative grumbled under his breath, knowing he couldn't do much but leave with the sudden audience. "Not over," he vowed, scowling at them, as his cronies covered his retreat.

"They won't be bothering you now," Moka said to Yukari. "Are you all right?"

That was how Dick, Moka, and Kurumu ended up with a new lunch mate, who was practically star-struck by being in Moka's presence. All it had taken was one compliment from Moka on Yukari's unique style before the younger girl had broken out into a paroxysm of girlish affection. "No . . . you're the one that's cool . . . and beautiful . . . and special . . ." she murmured.

"What are you saying?" Moka asked, and Dick and Kurumu were curious as well.

"I'm saying I want you to be my girlfriend!" Yukari declared, which shocked the crap out of Moka, Kurumu, and Dick. "Surely, it can't be so bad to be with someone like me! Please?!"

"I . . ." Moka uttered. "I can . . ."

Unfortunately, this halting statement of acceptance or tolerance was taken by Yukari as consent. This led to the equally unfortunate occurrence of Moka walking the halls with Yukari's small but surprisingly strong hands attached to her chest. "They're even bigger than they look!" Yukari cried out in wonder.

Dick had been trailing them, more embarrassed for Moka's sake than jealous that someone else was groping his would-be girlfriend's chest. "You know," he finally spoke up, "it's kinda rude to be groping someone's chest like that."

"Oh, phooey!" Yukari scoffed. "I know all about pretty boys like you, Richard Grayson! You charm girls and then you use them up and break their tender hearts! I won't let my Moka be seduced and broken by your filthy wiles! So I'm going to protect her from you!"

And how are you going to do that? Dick wondered sardonically. He got his answer when he suddenly found himself assaulted by a barrage of brooms and mops. He put his acrobatics skills through their paces dodging the rather weird assault on his person, and even caught one of the brooms and started using it like a quarterstaff to fend off the others. "How are you doing this?"

"I'm a witch!" Yukari replied.

Isn't it against the rules to divulge your yokai identity? Dick silently pondered, his attention focused mostly on dodging and blocking the brooms and mops that were still attacking him at Yukari's command. At least she can't use her magic on me directly.

This became the pattern of the next few days. Dick would try to talk to Moka, only for Yukari to chase him off with a barrage of brooms and mops. Because of Yukari's extreme attachment to Moka, Moka couldn't attend Newspaper Club meetings or interact with Dick anywhere that wasn't one of the classes they had in common that Yukari didn't. Dick had tried to sneak into Moka's dorm a few times using the stealth skills he'd learned from Batman, only for Yukari to find him and start screaming her head off about perverted peepers, forcing Dick to flee in the hopes of keeping his identity guarded.

"And now . . . everyone thinks I'm some kind of peeping stalker," was Dick's lament to Kurumu, showing how successful he'd been in keeping his identity concealed from Yukari.

"Why haven't you peeped on me, then?" Kurumu asked. "I mean, I am the hottest girl in this academy, so if you were going to peep on anybody . . ."

"Weren't you listening?" Dick asked morosely. "I'm not a peeper. All I wanted was to talk to Moka for a bit, try to see if I could get her to convince Yukari to let her have some breathing room."

"And Yukari found you first," Kurumu filled in.

"Yeah," Dick replied glumly.

Kurumu might have felt bad that Dick was feeling bad, but she couldn't help but see this as an opportunity. Now that Yukari had taken Moka out of play, the path to her Destined Mate's heart was clear as day. Thank you for being such a little brat, Yukari Sendo, she thought triumphantly.

Unbeknownst to the two of them, Yukari was eavesdropping from the outside and had a voodoo doll with a strand of Dick's hair entwined in it. "I won't be letting go of Moka anytime soon, Casanova," she whispered. She took the doll's left hand and moved it to strike the doll's head, only to be curious when she didn't hear the sound of a fist thumping its owner in the head. She took a chance and peered through the window, only to see Dick Grayson's hand strumming on the table, the very hand that should've struck him in his head thanks to the voodoo doll she'd made of him.

"Why didn't it work?!" Yukari whispered harshly to herself, and tried again by moving the doll's other hand to strike its head. Again, the result was Dick's hand strumming the table like he was tapping out Morse code. "What is this?! Why isn't this working?!" She took out a pair of binoculars and zoomed in on Dick's hands, seeing a silvery glint off one of them.

An anti-magic ring? Yukari realized. Where did he get one of those?! Putting the binoculars back in her kit, she took out another voodoo doll, one with a blue strand of hair she'd woven in after taking it off a sleeping Kurumu. "More than one way to skin a cat," the young witch hissed to herself. "Sorry, pretty boy, Moka and her breasts are mine. You can have the milk cow's instead."

Inside the meeting room, Dick's hands had been tingling quite strangely, so he vented it by tapping a tune . . . and a bit of Morse code . . . onto the table his hands were resting on. The code he'd tapped, if anybody other than him could read it, would have said, "I am so over this B.S. and I am ready to find someone who deserves hurting to ventilate my frustrations on." Distracting him from this grim message he'd tapped to himself was a loud gasping cry from Kurumu, which led Dick to look up . . . and see her groping herself.

"What are you doing, Kurumu?" Dick asked, coolly nonplussed.

"I don't know!" Kurumu replied frantically, her face flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and . . . something else as her hands continued groping her. "My hands are just acting on their own!"

Why does this remind me of a horror movie Jason and I watched once? Dick thought to himself, but he had no time for further ruminations when Kurumu's hands pulled themselves off her breasts . . . and replaced themselves with Dick's hands. "Kurumu, what is . . . ?" he asked, a little less cool about his confusion and embarrassment this time.

"Sorry . . ." Kurumu replied. "My hands . . . they're moving on their own . . . I can't help it . . ." As she said that, her face was still red with embarrassment, but her eyes were twinkling with something he couldn't quite name.

And that was when Moka and Gin walked in, both of them gaping with shock at Dick and Kurumu's forced position. "Richard . . . Kurumu . . . you're . . ." Moka uttered.

"Way to go, Mr. Peeper," Gin remarked, blending sarcasm and outrage in his tone. "First you go after Moka, and now Kurumu. Smooth."

"This . . . is not . . . what it looks like . . ." Dick protested, before being cut off by the sound of triumphant high-pitched laughter.

"Hey, I think I see something," Gin said, and stalked toward the window to check it out further.

That was how Yukari ended up yanked by her witch's hat into the Newspaper Club's meeting room. Before her stood Dick, Moka, Kurumu, and Gin, all of whom channeled their disapproval through the stares fixed upon her. Gin's expression, however, spoke of something other than disapproval, though no one else was paying attention.

"You can't do that to people," Dick said, his tone even and cold. "Do you even understand what you did?"

"I understand I just made you show your true colors!" Yukari replied. "You looked way too happy with that cow making you put your hands on her tits!"

"Hey!" Kurumu protested. "And I wouldn't have done that if you hadn't made me do it! What's wrong with you?! That was my body . . . and you . . . you just took it over like it was some toy!"

Moka's expression of sorrowful disapproval was worse than Kurumu's anger or Dick's cold stare. "Why, Yukari? I know you want to be with me, but do you have to make my friends hurt to make that happen?"

Yukari had no answer, not at first. She looked down at the floor, her face shadowed by her hat. "I've never had friends. Never needed them either," she spat out, trying to sound colder and tougher than a twelve-year-old girl should sound.

Dick started to hesitate. "Yukari . . ." he started to say, his voice softening. Then his battle-honed reflexes caused him to jump out of the way of a falling pot that had just popped into the air above him. "What?"

Yukari laughed out loud in satisfaction. "Oh, I got you good this time!" Then she looked into Dick's eyes, and stopped feeling so satisfied. The cold stare he aimed at her was like looking Death in the face and desperately hoping he'd look past her, at something or someone else, anyone else, anyone other than her.

"This has gone too far, Yukari," he said, his voice colder than a glacier. "You can stop this . . . or I can make you stop."

"What are you going to do?" Moka asked, horrified at what she was inferring from his tone. "She's just a little girl, Richard!"

"A little girl who's made it clear that she's content to abuse what power she has to torment and humiliate other people," Dick replied, his tone still colder than ice. "If she wants to be like that . . . I'll treat her just like I've treated all the others who thought they could get away with that."

Yukari ran away in panic, not even trying to play the defenseless and scared little girl; it wouldn't have worked on someone with eyes like those Richard Grayson was showing her. "And now you've scared her away!" she barely heard Moka berate Dick as she dashed as far away from him as she could get.

"Maybe she'll think twice about such things in the future," was Dick's stark answer. "Why are you even taking her side?"

"Because I know what it's like to be alone and feel like you have no friends, no way to be with people!" Moka retorted heatedly as she ran out from the clubroom to find Yukari.

Dick let out a ragged breath. "I think I'm going to get some air," he said.

"I'll come with you!" Kurumu offered.

"No, thanks," Dick replied. "I need some time alone. Solitary. Just a man and his thoughts." As he walked out of the clubroom and down the school halls, he heard Gin coming up behind him. "What do you want?"

"I just thought we ought to do some investigation," Gin suggested, "get your mind off that witch."

"Investigation of what?" Dick asked, and he remembered. With all the free time he'd had since Yukari had been keeping Moka away from him, Dick had been trying to track down any clues to the murderer of those young men who had been slated to begin their secondary schooling at Yokai Academy. Alas, he'd still been unsuccessful in finding anything resembling a clue or a lead, and he was starting to wonder if maybe he was going down the wrong trail.

"The peeper!" Gin replied. "And no, I don't mean you, Grayson."

"That . . . I was just trying to see if I could talk to Moka," Dick said. "Get your mind out of the gutter."

"From what I heard, this guy's been lurking outside the girls' locker room to scope some of the prime hotties here getting undressed," Gin explained. "I was thinking we could catch this guy, get your name cleared."

"I'll bite," Dick said. "Where do we go?"

"I'll show you," Gin replied, and with that, he led Dick to a structure with a half-opened window.

"Why's it open?" Dick wondered. "They need fresh air?"

"Maybe," Gin mused. "They do get hot and sticky in there . . ."

"So . . . that's the window from which he does his spying," Dick deduced once he got his eyes fixed on that window.

"And he'd need something to get in viewing height, unless he's one of those yokai that can stretch themselves, kinda like that Kano guy the 'Dark Savior' took down the other day," Gin added. He spotted a barrel on the side of the structure. "That's it! Perfect!" He moved to the barrel and picked it up to plant it beneath the window.

"Yeah, this is looking more and more like it," Dick said.

"You wanna try?" Gin asked.

"Why don't you try?" Dick asked back. "This is your investigation. You should take lead."

"This is our investigation, Dickie," Gin amended. "Or are you scared?"

"Please, you're not gonna fool me with a taunt like that," Dick retorted.

"I don't have to," Gin replied, a dangerous glint showing in his eye. "You see, you've got the two rarest beauties of this academy in the palm of your hand, and I'm sick of watching you try to play the gentleman. A real man would take what those girls were offering him, and that's exactly what I'm going to do – as soon as you're out of the picture."

Dick had tensed into a combat stance, his hidden weapons within reach. "Go for it, then."

"You asked for it," Gin answered ominously, and then, in the loudest falsetto he could manage . . .

"I see a pervert! I see a peeper!"

"What?!" Dick shouted in surprise. Expect the unexpected, he remembered Bruce saying to him often, something he should've taken more seriously from Gin. Just as he turned to confront Gin, Gin was gone, and the whoosh of air accompanying his departure made it clear just how he'd made his getaway. Dick would have no time to ruminate on that, though, because a mob of angry girls ready to inflict righteous retribution upon the peeper was storming his way.

As Dick Grayson put his stealth and evasion skills through their paces trying to get away from the girls who had been set up to think he was the peeping Tom menacing them, Yukari had fled deep into the forest of Yokai Academy. Nobody understood her, nobody at all . . . humans saw her kind as monsters, but when she came here, her so-called fellow monsters saw her as no better than a human who happened to know some "fancy magic tricks." She was hated and mocked everywhere she went, so why shouldn't she treat them as they would have treated her, humiliate them the way they did to her?

She was so caught up in her grim recollections that she wasn't watching her path, and she ran into a very solid mass blocking said path. "Hey, you jerk, why don't you apologize for bumping into me?!" she yelled petulantly.

"Oh, if it isn't the little witch," a familiar and hated voice sneered.

"Class representative . . ." Yukari uttered, stunned and frightened to see her usual tormentor and his two-man posse leering at her.

"You've been quite the little pest, Yukari," the class representative sneered. "I think it's time we showed you what we do to pests around here." At that, the trio's bodies began to shift, growing larger and more muscular as scales formed on their exposed skin, their teeth grew into sharpened fangs, claws extended where their nails had once been, and their eyes flashed reptilian gold.

Yukari instinctively raised her wand to defend herself, preparing a spell to ward off her attackers, only for the class representative to take a bite out of said wand. "Ugh, disgusting!" he spat. "Maybe you'll taste better!"

This is it . . . Yukari thought sadly. I'm going to die . . . all alone . . . with no friends . . . no one to understand me . . .

Her dark trail of thought was interrupted by a sudden explosion of smoke that obscured everyone's vision. "What the hell?!" shouted the astonished class representative.

"I'm going to give you one warning," a young but hard, cold voice declared. "Leave her alone."

"Who is that?! Show yourself!" one of the class representative's flunkies challenged angrily.

"Yeah, come out so we can eat you, too, if you're gonna defend this little bitch!" the class representative's other flunky added.

"Just remember, you wanted this," the voice said again, and with that, a hard metal staff struck the class representative in the jaw with enough force that it would have completely shattered a human's jaw. As it was, the reptilian representative just lost some teeth . . . and the tip of his tongue.

"You . . . you little bastard!" the class representative managed to grit out.

The fight was on, three against one, very unfair odds for most . . . but not this young fighter, who agilely darted out of the way of the lizardmen's rushing attacks and retaliated with brutal strikes of his staff to the sensitive pressure points beneath their armored scales. The smoke that still lingered from the earlier explosion obscured the lizardmen's vision, but the young fighter was not nearly so impeded by that lack of sight as he slammed his staff into their joints with vicious precision.

"Lesson learned?" the young fighter taunted. One of the lizardmen, the class representative, managed to stagger to his feet out of sheer rage and charge the young fighter. "Guess not. You know what you need?" He tossed a pellet at the lizardman and it exploded on contact with his snout, releasing cryonic gas that froze him in place, the reptilian's cold-bloodedness working against him. "A chill pill."

By this point, the smoke had faded just enough for the class representative's two flunkies to see what the young fighter had made of their leader. "You son of a bitch!" one of them screamed. That one got a brutal strike to the jaw with the young fighter's metal staff, knocking out more of his fangs.

"That's going to be you, too, if you don't back off this girl right now," the young fighter threatened, and the coldness in his voice sounded almost like Death himself speaking through him.

The class representative's flunkies beat a hasty retreat, and the smoke had almost faded for good, leaving Yukari able to see what the young fighter had done to her attackers. She also saw the young fighter himself, clad in a boys' Yokai Academy uniform and with short, spiky black hair. He was rather small, probably just a bit taller than her, and he held a thumb-sized metal rod that Yukari deduced had been the staff before. His eyes were covered by a pair of . . .

Were those sunglasses? In the middle of the night? With all that smoke that had engulfed them before?

"Are you all right?" he asked, his tone softening.

"Why . . . ?" Yukari asked.

"Why what?" the young fighter prompted.

"Why did you help me?!" Yukari blurted out. "I'm a witch! Hated and scorned by humans and monsters alike! Nobody would miss me! Nobody would even care! So why help me?!"

"Because you needed help," the young boy answered. "Nothing to it. Ok, maybe not quite nothing . . ." His face, what she could see of it beyond his sunglasses, tinted a little red. "You are pretty cute, after all."

Yukari was stunned by that answer. This deadly skilled fighter in front of her, who had just beaten the crap out of three monsters at least twice if not three or more times his size, had done so just because he thought she needed help? Just because he wanted to protect her? Her, of all people? And he actually called her cute?

"No one's going to hurt you here," the boy said. "I swear."

That was when the dam broke, Yukari bursting into tears and running into her rescuer's arms, which wrapped around her, sheltering her. "As long as I'm here, the only people who'll have to be afraid are the ones who think they can hurt other people and get away with it," the young boy whispered, a mix of comforting and grim warning. "I swear."

While Yukari took comfort in the arms of her rescuer, Moka had found herself on the bridge with Gin. "I can't believe it!" she shouted, filled with dismay.

"I understand how hard this is," Gin said, "finding out that someone you saw as a friend, someone you thought you could trust, could take advantage of people like that. Unfortunately, I saw him in the act with my own two eyes. I'm sorry, Moka." With that, he pulled Moka into his arms for what he intended to seem as a comforting embrace. "You won't have to worry for too long. He'll be caught, and then he'll never be able to take advantage of another girl like that again."

Moka was struggling inside herself. She still couldn't believe that Dick would really do the kind of things Gin had told her he did, that he'd seen him doing, not after he'd gone out of his way on several occasions to save her life and protect her from those that would hurt her. The man Gin was describing was not the kind of man she'd taken Dick Grayson for, and she knew there had to be something else happening that Gin wasn't telling her, that maybe he hadn't noticed.

That was when she felt something pressing against her midsection. She shifted her arms to try to reach it so she could feel it for herself, to see what it was. "Hey, what are you doing?" Gin asked.

"There's something . . ." Moka replied hesitantly, still trying to reach for the strange, thick-feeling object.

"Can't wait, huh?" Gin remarked smugly. "That's ok, neither can I!" Mistaking Moka's curiosity for a certain kind of eagerness, Gin reached for her breasts, causing her to cry out in shock and surprise. However, it had given her the opening to reach into Gin's pocket and snatch out the thick object he was hiding there.

"What are you doing?!" Moka asked.

"I thought this was what you wanted, you tease!" Gin snapped. Then he saw what Moka had in her hands. "Hey, you little thief, that's mine!"

"These pictures . . ." Moka uttered, having peered inside the small booklet she'd snatched from Gin. "Those girls . . . you were the one peeping all along, weren't you!? Not Richard! And what they said about him breaking in to peep on girls . . . he really did just want to see me! You absolute jerk! How could you do this?!"

"Because Dickie-bird doesn't deserve a prime piece like you!" Gin snarled, his muscles expanding along with his sharpening teeth as fur grew on his body. "And tonight's the full moon, so I'm completely in the zone! Why don't you just give in and let me make you my woman?!"

"All the evidence I needed," a familiar voice said grimly, and Moka and the transforming Gin, now looking more wolf than man, turned to spot its owner.

It was none other than Nightwing, garbed in the familiar skintight black suit with a blue stripe like outstretched wings across his chest and running down his arms to cover his middle and ring fingers, his eyes concealed by the black birdlike domino mask and its opaque lenses.

"You scumbags just can't help slipping up eventually," the masked vigilante remarked, holding up a recording device that he slipped back into a hidden cache in his costume. His tone would have been perfectly casual if not for the strong undercurrent of cold anger that it carried.

"Nightwing!" Moka exclaimed.

"Nice costume, Dickie," Gin taunted. "What, didn't think I'd know your scent? I'm a werewolf!"

"And I've got silver," Nightwing retorted, not letting on how troubled he was by Gin having figured out his identity already.

"You may have silver, but you don't have speed!" Gin snarled and charged straight for Nightwing. At least, he would have if a sudden detonation hadn't cut him off mid-charge, causing him to tumble to the ground in a furry heap. "What the hell?!"

"I've booby-trapped this entire area," Nightwing explained. "For any threat I might have to deal with. And let's just say, I've known and fought a few guys who could move like you do, only they're way faster."

Gin snarled at the insult. "I can still get her!" And he charged again, for Moka this time, only to be cut off by another detonation that sent him careening past her, causing him to let out an enraged howl.

Nightwing had moved to Moka's side in that moment. "I'm sorry about this," he said.

"How did you booby-trap the entire area?" she asked.

"I had some free periods," Nightwing replied coolly.

"You think some fancy traps are going to stop me, Grayson?!" Gin roared. "She's gonna be mine, and you're going to be gone! Dead and gone!"

He charged again, this time outrunning the detonations being set off by his speed, determined to get to the woman he thought was his prize. Nightwing stood in front of Moka, ready to defend her from Gin despite Gin's superior speed and strength as a werewolf. His hand brushed against the rosary on Moka's choker . . . and knocked it off, creating another explosion, this time of sheer monstrous aura that knocked Gin back and off his fast feet.

Once again, Moka's Inner self had taken over, a being of supreme grace and power, lustrous white hair hanging down to her waist, red eyes gleaming like rubies, and a fanged smile that promised death for whoever faced her. "You wretch . . ." she spat at Gin. "You really think you have what it takes to make me yours?"

Gin was practically drooling like the hungry wolf he was. "Even in your true form, you're absolutely beautiful! Time for you to become mine!" He charged again, outrunning the detonations once more and actually counting on them to obscure his movements from Inner Moka's and Nightwing's vision. There was another factor to the traps he hadn't anticipated, though, and he ran right into it when Inner Moka caught his outstretched arm with such contemptuous ease. "What . . . what is this?! How did you catch me?! I'm a werewolf! You vampires have strength, we have speed! I'm untouchable to the likes of you!"

"Look up," Inner Moka stated simply.

"The moon! I can't see it!" Gin exclaimed in panic.

"All the smoke," Nightwing added. "That was the entire point of the mines I set here."

"You . . . you . . ." Gin sputtered out in panic and outrage.

"Now . . ." Inner Moka declared as she threw Gin into the air, then kicked up after him, flipping above him. "Know your place!" This now-customary phrase from her was followed by her dropping him with a brutal kick that slammed him into the ground, in a defeated furry heap.

"I'll remember . . ." Gin uttered dazedly.

"You sure showed him," Nightwing remarked.

"And you're far more clever than I thought," Inner Moka added. "Setting traps to deal with physically superior opponents, turning the environment to your advantage and against those foes that should overwhelm you. Quite skillful of you, Richard Grayson."

"I had a very good teacher," Nightwing replied.

The next morning, a few things happened. First was that with Gin exposed as the true peeping Tom, and for attempting to assault Moka, Dick Grayson was proven an innocent man. The girls who'd been ready to tear him a new one when they thought he was the one peeping on them were now after Gin to give him a piece of their minds. Second was that Yukari Sendo had stood up in front of her class and actually apologized to them all for the way she'd behaved toward them, which had actually caused them to think about the way they'd treated her before and try to make amends for that. The third was . . .

"I decided I want to join your club!" Yukari declared.

"Why do you want to join our club?" Moka asked.

"Yeah, after . . ." Kurumu was about to say, only to be shushed by a gentle warning glance from Dick.

"I realized . . . what I did to you was wrong," Yukari replied. "You just wanted to try to be my friend, you even defended me from the class representative and his goons . . . and I was just so . . ."

"Ungrateful?" Kurumu filled in, only to get a reproachful stare from Moka and Dick.

"Yeah . . ." Yukari admitted shamefacedly. "And I want to make it up to you, especially after they came after me again, and . . ."

"They did?" Moka asked. "Are you all right, Yukari?"

"I am," Yukari replied. "They got beaten down really badly, and the class rep even got frozen, since he's a lizard and coldblooded creatures don't do that well in the cold."

"All right," Dick said. "Well, I'd like to thank whoever saved you."

"You can thank him yourself, Dick," a familiar young voice greeted from the doorway to the clubroom. At that point, everyone turned to see a young boy with neatly combed black hair dressed in a boys' Yokai Academy uniform, blue eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Timmy!" Yukari exclaimed in delight, tackling him into a hug. "My knight in shining armor!"

"I don't know about shining . . ." the boy, Tim Drake, uttered skeptically. "Hey, Dick, long time no see."

"Hey, Tim," Dick greeted Batman's newest protégé, his brother-in-arms and the newest Robin. "What are you doing here?"

"Late entry," Tim replied simply.

"They actually allow that?" Moka asked confusedly.

"At least for me they did," Tim said.

"You two know each other?" Kurumu asked.

"Yeah," Tim answered. "We're brothers, kind of."

"Yeah, kind of," Dick repeated with a wry smirk.

"It's so nice to meet family of Richard's!" Moka exclaimed. "I'm Moka!"

"And I'm Kurumu," Kurumu introduced herself. "Your 'kind-of' brother is my 'kind of' man, and my Mate of Fate."

"Huh?" Tim uttered, raising a curious eyebrow.

Dick shrugged and smiled slightly as if silently communicating, "Yeah, it's crazy, but that's how we roll here at Yokai Academy, and guess what, I kinda like crazy." For her part, Moka gaped disbelievingly at Kurumu before finally finding her voice. "No, he's not!" she protested. "He's . . ."

"Well, he's not yours, and he won't be ever!" Kurumu declared, causing Moka to glare at her. Meanwhile, Tim and Dick stared over the silently warring girls at each other, Dick smiling at Tim in a "nothing to worry about" kind of way and Tim giving him a look that suggested he was worried for Dick's sanity.

Yukari just giggled. "You two are so funny!"

Back in the dark, dank chamber, the ominous man in the dark uniform stared at the reports he had been given. "The vigilante strikes again . . . and in two places this time . . ." he mused grimly. "Either he is shockingly fast . . ."

". . . or there are two of them now," a woman's voice, belong to a tall, spidery-limbed eerie beauty, supplied.

"Two . . ." the man growled, as the candlelight flickered in response to his aura. "Two of them, flouting my order . . . this will not stand . . . Keito. This is going to be our top priority, the chief mission of the Yokai Academy Public Safety Committee. Find these vigilantes, learn who they are, and teach them that there is only room for one justice in this domain, in my domain."

"Understood, Captain Kuyo," Keito replied.


End file.
